Silent Hill: The Dream Machine
by Elliot Bowers
Summary: This was inspired by all four Silent Hill games. Selena Millieux, an ambitious young woman, enters an alternate reality not yet under the fog-enshrouded wrath of her hometown's "God." Not yet...
1. Chapter ONE

Silent Hill: The Dream Machine

…

Chapter 1

…

by Elliot Bowers

Daylight came slowly and eventually to the fog-enshrouded residential streets: a thick, smoke-like fog that swirled and pervaded everything. One could see sunrise coming in the reddish light that colored the buildings and streets and in the brightening of the fog, but one could not see the golden colors of the eastern horizon itself. One could not see the horizon or the sky; the fog made it impossible to see even beyond half a street's distance. Mixed in with this fog were smoky, mucous colored mists that floated throughout and sometimes clung to structures: such as houses and parked cars.

_"Ar-who-o-o-oh…!" _That was the cry of an _animal _in the distance: somewhere on a street nearby. A person would have supposed it to be a dog, a wolf…any kind of canine. However, dogs were supposed to have fur. Dogs were also supposed to run on four legs. The _animals_ that made that noise sometimes had more than that number of limbs: among other things.

_"A-i-i-iagh!" _The sound in the fog was met with a high-pitched shriek. _Animals _could scream as well. There were even _animals _that could make sounds that sounded something like human speech. Yet even speech itself is just another pattern of sounds that could be interpreted any amount of ways: much as one could interpret the wafting patterns of fog to be vaguely human in shape. "_Oblamah, satya-a-agraha… Noom-a-zoom…" _So they went, making such sounds as the _animals _staggered their way through the fog. "_Elkric, fwick! Wee-too-did!"_

One more sound and the ones who could make talking sounds were far away enough not to be heard. As padding footsteps vanished off into the mists, it left this quiet view of the peaceful, fog-obscured suburban streets. Ah, blessed and blissful streets… This was peace and tranquility. There was no perceptive wind, and the fog was warmly comforting: enshrouding everything. No sounds of cars, human chattering or any other noises of civilization interrupted the peace. There was not even the interruption of a single car driving. That was because the cars were cold and dead at the sides of the road and parked in garages. The dark windows of these houses looked out on this view.

This town was abandoned by its inhabitants. No one walked the peaceful sidewalks that passed by these quiet houses… Most all of the houses were no longer in use, no longer inhabited by people. And no one drove those any of cars: which were actually rusting prematurely due to the wet fog and the clinging mists. No one would ever drive those cars again: not in this town.

…

After showering, Selena dried her hair with a towel and looked into the mirror. She supposed she was pretty, having the same slim and vaguely athletic body-type she had since she had been a teenager, along with a round sort of face framed by silken dark hair: her dark hair a contrast to the almost sickly pale color of her milk-toned skin. Unfortunately, her youthful appearance made things especially difficult for her job prospects. Though she had gone on to finish her studies at a local college, some still mistook her for one of the local high-school kids. People tended not to take her too seriously, so she had been stuck in a receptionist's job at the power plant just beyond the town's border: though she had a business degree and wanted to be an executive.

Or she _would _have been stuck in a darned entry-level position before all of _this _happened. It all happened that troubled day… There were air-raid sirens blaring and she drove as fast as she could in getting back to her house: a Hellish headache burning in her head and her throat beginning to hurt as earthquakes shook the streets. This was while the temperature became more than summer-hot as the fog began to roll in. She was glad to have made it back that day, fainting in bed as things grew worse. She had awakened to find that _the _day had come to this town. Selena believed that she was probably one of the only few people who had not been severely affected by the change.

At least she didn't believe so. Some things _did _happen to her: some minor changes. Her skin was now more smooth than it should have been: too smooth and pale. Almost artificially so. Also true was how a strip of beige leather had somehow gotten around her neck one night. She did not know where it had come from. She couldn't get it off. It just appeared, and there was no removing it! The more she worried about it, the more she struggled, the more it seemed that the accursed thing would strangle her.

So she chose not to worry. She still retained her human appearance. It was still her face, her body… Things could certainly have been a great deal worse for her. God knows things already _had _been worse for many others. Why she was able to remain "unblessed," she did not know. Any moment, a Denier could begin seeking her out to take her away…

That would be a later worry. She would get dressed now. Her bedroom mirror was positioned next to the window, the curtains slightly parted to let in light. It was somewhat odd, how some of the house's appliances worked and others didn't. The lights no longer worked: leaving her to resort to candles she had obtained from one of the abandoned shops. Along with lights, certain other appliances ceased working. Yet the water pump in this house still functioned, along with the clothes-cleaner. T he water heater was attached to the furnace, which also still worked and let her shower with warm water: even if the water had a slightly odd chemical smell to it. The furnace… It was very important that the furnace of her house still worked

No bother, really. There were some enjoyable books of poetry and religious contemplations. That is, they were the original texts of her religion: the town's religion. Though such beliefs had been used to make this town the way it was now, unleashing a premature day of Judgment, she still took solace in the ancient words. She thought of some basic tenants and doctrines from her religion as she took up folded clothing from atop her dresser-drawer. These clothes she took to the other side of her bedroom: where there was more light, coming from the window.

Ignoring the ache in her throat and in her head, Selena dressed herself in jeans (slightly damp from incomplete drying) and a cream-colored blouse. She looked in the mirror to neaten and straighten parts of her outfit. She then pulled on calf-length deerskin boots with low heels in case she had to run in a hurry. And of course the damned gold-colored neckband was still around her neck: pressing into the ridges of her trachea.

Damned choker… That's what they called this kind of ornament: a _choker_. She liked to wear her platinum earrings and necklaces, even occasionally using red ribbons to make ponytails of her pretty dark hair: but never a choker. Choker-style neck-bands had connotations of sado-masochism. Selena hated pain…

Which was why she had tried to remove the choker. Tried and _tried _to get it off: though the effort almost meant cutting her neck. It was too tough for scissors. Knives were out of the question since she had nicked herself that way. Another careless slip of the blade, and she could have _died_.

So the thing around her neck was one of those things she simply had to bear with, along with the _animals_ and the fog… And being alone, so terribly alone! She always felt painfully lonely these days: just herself against all others in this town. _They_ knew that she had not been blessed, had not changed along with everyone else. The _animals _and those who controlled the animals, perhaps _they _did not see her as being a threat. If she ever did become a threat, perhaps _they_ could come for her: leaving a mannequin shaped like her where she once was.

What would they do to her? Would she begin to grow an extra pair of arms at her back, like grotesque vestigial wings? Or perhaps they would do something to her head by bolting one of those rusty electromechanical masks to the front of her head. Worse still would be if they took her and threw her into one of their open-ended engines, her body shredded to pulp for their purposes.

Above all else, she did not want to change. Crossing her arms over her midriff, almost hugging herself, she looked to the right of the mirror: at her curtained bedroom window. She supposed she was lucky since she hadn't ended up the same way as everyone else in this town: either disappearing or changing. What happened to everyone else would have been considered impossible…or insane. _Ha-ha… Insane!_

_Ha-ha. _Such a thought… What if she had already been changed and did not know it? Maybe her body only _looked _human on the outside. Perhaps _they _had waited for her to sleep and had removed her internal organs, replaced them with strange machinery and had seamlessly sealed her body again. That would explain why she was no longer hungry or thirsty... It would also explain why, whenever she went exploring, able to run from the _animals _without becoming tired. She had even been struck a few times by _animals, _though what should have been horrific and bloody wounds only resulted in bruises that faded within an hour. She exercised regularly to keep her slim figure, but she _never _had physical endurance such as this before. She must have already been changed. It was _that easy!_

"Ha-ha-ha…" _Whup!_ Selena had slapped both hands over her own mouth, clamping down the laugh. Because if she let the laughter continue, maybe she wouldn't stop: her sanity shaken apart by maddening fits and giggles of hysterics. Maybe it would have been better if she really was going crazy and none of this was really happening. No… She knew better; this was really happening.

If no one was left to judge her physical appearance, then why dress up? Well, this was done out of habit. It was done out of the sheer desire to maintain some kind of normal daily routine despite everything else. It was something to do: showering and dressing to prepare for the day, to sneak around the neighborhood and explore things in the hope that the situation had somehow gotten better. Maybe she would also run into someone else not changed.

She lowered her hands and looked at herself in the mirror. Her clothes tended to be close-fitting these days. It wasn't to show off her slim figure; it was just that such clothes were less prone to wrinkles and made less noise. Good thing about the lack of wrinkles, because her clothing iron had been ruined with rust. Good, her jeans and blouse were looking neat. Her hair was already brushed. As for her face, it was fine… Makeup? Not today; not ever again. Then she noticed…a change…

Her eyes were red. She leaned close to the mirror, looking into her own eyes. This wasn't just the dry-eye sort of red-veined look. No, those things were the color of deep-red rubies: the irises crimson and shiny. First she couldn't get this damned choker off of her neck. Now this, her eyes!

Bodily changes without apparent reason, such manifestations: according to the doctrine of the town's religion: were considered a blessing. There was a time before this in which people were "blessed," but such "blessings" were rare. The "blessed" people would go to the hospital to confirm their "blessing" with the doctors, who took note of these things.

The manifestations increased in frequency over the past few months as this day approached. They blissfully reported to the members of the religion in the "other" church that manifestations were rising, more people checking into the hospital with odd lumps growing out of their bodies or having sprouted extra body parts overnight and having _headaches_. It was the blessing that was filling them, taking their souls and heralding in the Day of Reckoning! Then they increased over the course of a week. Earthquakes followed, along with unusually warm weather and meteorites falling from the sky. One day, there was a major earthquake, followed by the sound of sirens as fog covered the town…

The hospital released all of the blessed, leaving them to run, hobble, gallop or whatever: letting them run free even as earthquakes rattled the town. Quite a few members of the town's true religion were doctors at the hospital, and they let the "blessed" patients go despite the deformities that gave odd shapes to bodies. Better or worse yet was how _everyone _who worked there belonged to the town's true religion.

So, no… The situation never became any better. This was the end of the town, probably even the end of this world. The rest of this planet was going to look like this eventually: the fog, the people being changed, the _animals…_ If the rest of the world didn't know what was going to happen, then maybe the rest of the world was better off.

Selena should have ended up like all other worshippers, just as everyone else preferred to drink. She didn't like alcohol as her father was a heavy drinker. Why had her mother ever married… No, she would not speak ill of her mother. That was a sin, certainly an invitation to _them!_ Just as there were times when she could feel the presence of _animals_ in the fog, they could certainly feel the gist of anything she did.

Just maybe she should finally do the thing to get her out of this ruined town…before anything _else _happened. She made eye contact with her ruby-eyed reflection in the full-length mirror: as if ready to ask questions of her reflection. One hand still over her abdomen, she raised her right hand to the uncuttable gold-covered band around her neck, fingered the place where it pressed her throat. She looked at the new blood coloring of her own eyes. She didn't _feel _any different from yesterday. Or maybe, beyond the headache and the pain in her throat, she wasn't supposed to feel anything…

_Thump-thump… _"Ah!" she gasped, turning around fast enough to make her hair whip. Oh no! Please, not again! _Th-thump-thump-thump…! _Something was pounding on her bedroom walls and ceiling. _Thump-thump… Thump! _More accurately, something was pounding from _inside _the bedroom walls: like someone trapped and trying to get out. _Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump!_

She suddenly felt cold. Then, it felt as if the choker-band had become just tight enough to begin interfering with her breathing. Small droplets of moisture began to form on the mirror and the window, formed due to condensation. As the _pounding _and _thumping _shook the walls, the droplets of moisture forming on the glass and mirrors began to shake as well. _Thumpa-thumpa, thump-thump-thump-thump! _It sounded as if drugged construction workers were at work on tearing apart the walls of her bedroom or seeking to tear apart her state of mind by using nuclear-steamed trip-hammers.

That was when the sound of the marching band started up. Yes, it was the real-live _boom-boom-oomph_ sound of a damned full-brass _marching orchestra…_right in her very house! There was the sound of the bass drum being pounded and the baritone horns accompanying trumpets. And there were the _flutes! Boomba-boomba, boom-boom-boom! _Keeping in the beat and occasionally chiming in was the _cla-a-ash _of metal cymbals.

_Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa… _She could hear footsteps stomping through her small house and the sounds of their thunderously loud instruments: the tuba and trumpets blaring up a sadistically loud and cheerful little tune while the bass drum kept going _boom-boom-boom. _Oh my God… And there was the sound of her kitchen being ruined as the two-seater table and pots and pans were being flung around. _Boom-boom-boom… _The sound made her sink to her knees in fright because that was probably no marching band. Just as the _animals_ that hobbled and stalked the residential streets were no longer animals, that was no assemblage of children with instruments!

Then the band began to howl… A blood-chilling sound that went above the sound of the drums. If they were not human, then the members of the band were…something else. No longer human, that was for certain. Selena had a terrible idea of green-skinned children with lopsided faces, their band uniforms smeared with slime and their hats in tatters from prolonged exposure to the affects of the fog. It would be easy for them to play instruments as they all had grown an extra set of arms.

_Booma-boomba-boomba, boom-boom-bo-o-oom…! _Feeling sick, her head full of dark pain as the thing around her neck began to _hurt: _making a whistling sound accompany every breath. She turned around on shaky legs and staggered over to her bedroom door: resisting the oh-so-tempting urge to curl up on her bed. She peeked out into the short hallway : which ended in a door that led right to her kitchen. The pounding was coming from beyond that door at the end of the short hall, beyond which was the kitchen. The sounds also seemed to be extended in the living room. She had to get to the basement to stop them.

The stairway to the basement was in the hallway: a door to open an stairs to go down. Yes, the basement was _exactly _where one wanted to be during a full-blown situation like this! But it was the only way. With the marching band _boom-boom-boom _and _howw-w-wling_, filling her house with pomp and noise, she staggered into the hallway: leaning against the wall every few steps when her head hurt too much, forcing herself to breathe more slowly through her now-constricted throat. She opened the basement door and gripped the rusty metal rail: going down the metal stairs.

…

With the sound of that phantasmagoric activity in the living room and the kitchen, it drowned out the sound of a vehicle approaching: going along the residential street. It was a bus, and it was on fire. Flames flickered all along the length of its charred, tubular metal frame as the rubber wheels sagged and dripped. All of the windows had been blown open, making for more bright, golden flames flickering out. Somehow, it was able to make its way through the dense misty fog: a huge passenger vehicle ambling along on ever-melting tires.

_Sque-e-e-e… _There was the sound of tortured metal squeezing metal as the brakes were applied: the fire so hot as to even destroy its brake-pads. But stop it did, this burning vehicle. In doing so, it left ponderous slow smears of melted rubber: its tires sliding along the asphalt of the street. _Fw-fwick! _There was the sound of the side-door opening: exposing the flaming insides of this burning bus. The flames made for a yellow glow being cast on the wet grass in front of the houses: the fires being reflected by shiny windows. Indeed, the burning bus itself had arrived at Selena's house.

…

The house-basement was almost completely empty save the washer-dryer combination, a fuse-box and: of course: the furnace, which was against the East-side wall. This was basically a large concrete-lined room beneath her house. _Boom-boom-boom-boom…_ That invisible marching band was still banging around upstairs and making animal sounds. She ignored the pounding footsteps and the howling as she made her way to the fuse-box opposite the stairs.

The lights? _Flick! Ah… _A bare light bulb attached to a ceiling fixture made for at least some light down here. This basement only had one window, which set the rest of the basement in gray shadows beyond the yellow light.

Wiping her hands on her jeans-covered thighs, she eyed the machine's lid. A pull on the small rubber handle exposed the circuit-breakers: which looked like sideways light-switches painted blue and covered with a slick layer of mucous. Half of them were in the _off _position, having been overloaded when the flow of electricity became erratic. That was probably because some of the house's wiring was ruined when the mists from the outside first leaked in. Some of the circuit breaker switches were already affected: They were covered with slime that resembled what leaked out of a dead body not embalmed.

_Oh, horrid!_ She wasn't going to touchany of these things: covered as they were with contamination! She just had to make sure the circuit-breaker to the furnace was fine. It was fine. That's what mattered. So she closed the fuse box and wiped her hands on her jeans again. No telling what kinds of diseases could be carried by that mucous-stuff. It was bad enough her eyes had changed color and she had this awful constant headache. And her breathing was becoming more troubled; every one of her breaths making for wheezing sounds through a narrowed windpipe.

Fingering the tight thing around her neck and forcing herself to stay calm, she stagger-walked her way across the concrete floor of the basement: making her way towards the furnace. The furnace was an electromechanical-looking sort of machine the size of a coffin, with pipes and wires connecting it to the floor and ceiling. Its case was made of a shiny and sleek blue metal, though the pipes connected to it were reddish brown with rust, the barbed wires wrapped around the pipes and along the sides.

To the right side of the furnace was a hidden box where Selena had kept a box of gold-colored candles. If the other members of her church had _ever _discovered that she owned such candles, that would have been the end of her. But all the others were gone now: changed or gone. She took out nine of the gold-colored candles: which matched the same color-tone as the choker around her neck. These candles she arranged in a circle around herself as she knelt in front of this furnace. Matches? No, these candles didn't need matches. All that she had to do was turn on the furnace; the candles would light themselves. That is, if the furnace still worked….

She had faith. The furnace would work. It must have been working, having prevented her from ending up like everyone _else _in this town. Kneeling down, both knees on the hard concrete floor, she reached forward to pull a heavy switch on the right side of this large electromechanical heating-machine. It was a hard pull…

_Thump-p-p! _This closed the switch and powered on the furnace itself. There was the sound of motors and rotors powering up and turning up. A sort of comforting warmth began to fill the basement: going against the chill and cold that pervaded the rest of this house. She began to feel safer already.

Quiet closed over the house. All of the ruckus upstairs came to a stop. The sound of the drums and horns, the howling sounds and the stomping feet, all of that was gone. This neckband loosened again. Better, her headache was gone. So many things had suddenly become much better at once. It was unfortunate that she had to use all of the candles at once; this relief was only temporary. She began to chant.

…

"Hail Bridgett, hail the light

….Greetings to dreams of sound

Come to me, bring aid to me

….For they are all around.

"A fallen land, this darkened place

…Across a burning sea

Another land, another world

…May lightning carry me."

…

There was the rising roar coming from within the furnace: a deeper sound of machinery working. The candles lit themselves, becoming brighter. This furnace was reacting to the destabilizing energies that had accumulated within the house itself and was feeding off of it. And as its strength was facilitated by the glow of the candles, there was no stopping it now…

_La le la de la la da la… Tra-la-a-a… _She heard…singing… It was the a maiden: simple, beautiful and innocent. This sweet sound was somehow audible above the _roaring _and _churning _of the furnace. Then things began to change… Everything blurred…_and shimmered…as if…_the basement was becoming less…_clear and coherent. The floor itself…_seemed…_out of focus even as…_Selena kneeled on it.

_Tra-la-la-_la_-la-la, tra-_l_a-la_ _… _She clenched her eyes shut just before she _scree-e-eamed_ in pain! A powerful, nightmarish headache gripped…_her skull with invisible clamps. This was the sort of headache with green claws and a leathery face: a face with sharp teeth. She began to_ _feel…everything_…_becoming_ _blurred through her haze of pain. The band around her neck squeezed even tighter. She didn't know or care which hurt worse: the neck-band or the headache. Lying on the floor, writhing in pain, she began to feel things changing._

_The square ventilation grate on the left-hand side of the furnace opened up: opening into a darkness full of machine-sounds. Selena was vaguely aware of her body falling sideways, her eyes staring into the darkness of that open vent. The thump-clanking sounds were even louder and darker in there. In there…_

…

_It was a shadowy corridor of rusted metal and gritty, cracked concrete floor… The walls were held together with thick metal plates, which were coming out of joint: blood leaking from the cracks in the seems. But more blood oozed from the pipes: which were visible in the openings of the walls in this hall… Even some of the doors had to be bolted shut._

_This hall was over sixty-three thousand miles long and maintained by blood workers, this hall with too many doors on the left and right. There were just so many doors, leading from places and to places. Some of the doors had sounds of madness coming from behind them: limbs pounding on the other side as strange languages spoke worried words to whomever would be listening. Other doors were quiet, though various kinds of mists leaked out from the cracks and seams._

_Someone crawled along the pipes attached to the ceiling-… Someone, or something. Six muscular arms attached to the thing's torso were limbs enough. The head turned to look down in passing. Moving on, things were going on as usual… Never mind what dripped from the pipes._

_Three short men in jaundice-colored coveralls dropped down from the ceiling, coming from a set of pipes: beige bands of metal around their necks. They got up and went into one of the doors along the right side of the corridor. It was a machine room in there: a room with black walls and red lights._

_In that room, they crawled over to one of the rusty devices and began to turn one of the gold-colored valves. They turned it to the left. As they did so, their heads began to blur: a rumbling sound of quaking in the distance. Squee… Squee… Squee… The blood workers turned the valves in synchronization with each other, their heads beginning to vibrate and blur._

_Out in the hall, another rusted door faded into existence on the left hand side of this corridor: a door that opened up on hinges lubricated with a dark-blue grease. It was especially difficult to see what was beyond the open door: so full of golden light. This way was not the best way, but it was better than where Selena had come from._

_…_

_2._

_…_

_Selena regained consciousness…_full of pain and sickness. _Oh-h-h… _Her head… It felt as if her head had been pumped full of toxic rain-water before being run over by a truck. And her abdomen felt as if it was full of someone else's vomit, burning its way up her esophagus: which truly did hurt like Hell. Gasping for breath, she slid herself sideways off of the bed. It was easy to do since the top of the bed was covered with a sickly substance: something slick and wet. _Oh G-G-God…!_

Staggering as fast as she could, one hand over her slime-coated abdomen and the other hand on her aching throat, she quickly made her way out of the bedroom. It was dark in the hallway, but she knew where the bathroom was. Good thing the bathroom door was open. She probably wouldn't have made to the toilet if it was. In the small bathroom, she collapsed in front of the toilet itself: the seat down. Limp, wet lengths of her hair curtained the sides of her pain-wracked face as her mouth opened and her abdomen heaved.

Here it comes…! Thick acidic mush gushed up from her abdomen, up her throat and out of her open mouth: splashing into the bowl. Gasping for air, there was another upwelling of the nasty stuff. Chunks and waves of wet, rust-colored mush continued to come out of her mouth. Where the _Hell _did all of this come from? She didn't even remember eating before using the furnace!

There was nothing she could do but let her body eject the contamination, the disgusting stuff. She opened her mouth and more of the reddish, rust-colored mush came up from within her body, through her throat and out of her open mouth: sloshing and splashing into the toilet bowl. She wanted it out of her, _all _of it. She just stayed in front of the porcelain toilet bowl, hands on the rim, letting it come out.

Her head full of dizziness, feeling twisted and sick, she used a sleeve of her leather jacket to wipe away some of the reddish drool. Her jacket was also splashed with the stuff…as were all of her clothes. _Ugh… How terribly horrid! _She reached to flush the toilet, then pushed herself to standing as the water splish-splashed down and away. Easy… Careful…

A quick turn of the faucet-valve produced a flow of cool water. By the light from the bathroom's ceiling fixture, she washed and rinsed her hands and began to wash her face. Then she washed her face again: before taking off her leather jacket as so she could wash her arms… She had a look at herself in the mirror. Her hair, straight and dark, was now slicked down with something greasy. It clung to her scalp and the sides of her face: some of the dark grease trickling down her forehead. And she was glad to see that it was her own dark eyes that stared back at her from her reflection: eyes the color of night in a pale face. The rest of her body seemed intact: no alterations since she had made the transition. But the band around her neck, it had…changed. Now the damned thing was twice as thick as it was before… And it was made out of a shiny metal: at least an inch thick.

_No…! _She began pulling at it and feeling around it, feeling for some kind of hinge or _something_. Instead of something made of some kind of leather, now it was _metal. _It was as if someone fastened a giant golden handcuff around her neck and had flawlessly soldered it on. How did this happen? Leaving the town should have _removed_ the choker, not turn it into sadistic jewelry! The thing seemed to be made out of gold. Worse was how it was slick with the stuff that covered the rest of her.

She gagged when she had gotten a few of her fingers caught beneath it. Gasping for air, choking with panic, she managed stay calm enough to slip her fingers out from the metal neck-band: a _real _choker now. Maybe she could pay to have someone remove it. Later… Right now, the rest of herself was a mess. Her skin… Her hair, her _clothes._

Looking in the mirror, the young lady realized that she was a _disgusting mess! _She quickly undressed herself and stepped into the shower. It took a second for her to turn on the valves to begin a flow of hot, soothing water. Wonderful_, clean _water! It poured down on her, soothing away the aches and some of the sickness. She let the warmth sink in, just standing there. Selena began to feel better already. There was some shampoo and soap: unscented, but that was fine.

As she washed, she was able to think about what to do next. Apparently, the transition worked. Not that she lacked faith. It was just that she had never tried it before. Now she was somewhere else. This bathroom had the same general structure of her own, but it was not _her _bathroom. She had recovered consciousness in a bedroom with a different design from one in the house she originally left. This was the same house, but it was not originally _her _house…

This house was hers to live in now, however. She began rinsing shampoo out of her hair as she thought along that line. There was nothing but ruin for her to go back to, so there was no desire at all to return. All of the people she had known were ruined. They were absorbed by the disease that closed over her original town and probably closing over the entire world: consuming entire towns and lands, casting everyone and everything in fog and rot. People were covered over and…_changed_. Or they seemed to disappear completely. She would _never _go back. Never again.

When she was sure she was clean, all traces of that stuff off her skin and out of her hair, she stepped out of the shower stall. There was a large, rough towel on a rack: a little rough and odd-smelling, but it was better than nothing. She took a look down at her ruined clothes and instantly decided that she just might not wear that particular outfit anymore. There had to be some things for her to wear in the bedroom. Something… Anything but that.

Wearing nothing but the gold-metal band around her neck, she quickly minced her way through the hallway and into the bedroom. Once there, she went to the closet: a terrycloth robe hanging on a hook next to it. Hmm… Too big. The thing was too big and floppy on her thin frame. No problem. She just tied the cloth belt. It was still a bit too floppy, and the heavy sleeves felt cumbersome on her arms. This was apparently a man's sort of robe.

That meant…. Selena knelt and opened the bottom-most drawer of the dresser-drawer. Pants, the drawer was full of pants and socks. The next drawer up had white undershirts… Next up, there were boxer shorts. Getting to her feet, she opened the last two drawers: more shirts and some boxes of candy and truck magazines. What the _Hell _were those doing in a clothes drawer?

Worse yet, what the _Hell _was she going to wear? Obviously, she had ended up in what was once a man's house. She hadn't thought about this, had not especially concerned herself with what she would do once she had managed to escape. Now that she _was _here, some petty problems had manifested themselves. For example, ending up in a man's world with _no women's underclothes!_ Apparently, this man did not seem married.

"Selfish fool," she muttered. What, was she supposed to go around without panties or brassiere? Were men's clothes supposed to do? Why didn't the man even have a live-in girlfriend? It would have made things a lot easier!

Suddenly, she feeling guilty. In coming here, she had taken over his life: stepped into his life. All of the things that were his were now hers. She had stepped into the portion of reality once occupied by him. Whatever happened to him, Selena only had a vague idea. Whatever happened to him could not have been good.

Selena stared at the drawers she had yanked open: full of the man's clothes. She looked down at the robe: which was _his _robe. Then the young lady thought about the slime-coated clothes she left on his bathroom floor and the robe that she had used after using _his _shower. She slowly turned herself around to looked at the bed over there. The quilted bedcover had a long Selena-shaped stain on it. The girl had ruined the bedroom and bathroom so far, and she had just gotten here!

Hands on her robe-covered hips, she thought about her current situation: about what had happened to this house's previous owner because of her action. Well, what _else _was she supposed to do? Stay back and probably end up like everyone else? It was quite terrible enough how she was already changing from being exposed to whoever: or whatever: it was that began changing that world. Her eye-color was just now turned back to normal, though she still had something around her neck. There _was _such a thing worse than death. Staying behind would have meant she would have experienced it.

Again, there was no going back now. She took off the robe and pulled on a pair of the man's jeans. They fit very wrong: not the right shape around her hips and just, overall, too loose and floppy. The guy must have been pretty hefty, which would explain why the robe was too big. She found a belt with a friction buckle to keep the jeans on. The undershirts were out of the question. There were some tee shirts she could wear.

Oh, there was a mirror next to the drawer: letting her look at herself. Yes, Selena was now the queen of awkwardness! These pants looked as if they would fall off of her. And the light blue tee-shirt looked like a short-sleeved dress. God, the outfit made her look like someone's lost child. Worse yet was her lack of anything worn underneath. She had on no panties or brassiere, not even a chemise. It wasn't as if she hadn't gone braless before, but now it just felt as wrong as the rest of the outfit. She couldn't leave the house looking like _this!_

She went back to the bathroom and picked up her ruined clothes. Her leather jacket would have to be hand-washed later. But if this house was a similar enough version of the one she came from, there should be a wash-dry machine in the basement. She _hoped _they had clothes-tending machines in this world. What, maybe they washed clothes by hand: or had trained _animals_ wash them? Or what if they did not wash clothes at all? Ugh, she certainly hoped that was not the case!

In the short hall outside the bedroom, she opened a door at the side. Again, this house really was very similar to her original one: just with some slight variations… Like _no women's clothes!_ She found the door with the stairway leading to the basement. The door opened, she picked up her bundled clothes again: the familiar ichor again staining the skin of her arms. Utterly disgusting…!

In the basement, the bright light fixture on, she found not one but _two _machines. They were set where her furnace had been in her house. Oh, one was for washing. The other was for drying. The buttons and knobs were strange and the clothing detergent smelled funny too… She put the clothes in the machine for washing. It took her a few minutes to set the knobs (to heavy duty, of course), pour in the detergent, and activated it. She supposed she would have to come back and take out the clothes to put them in the drying machine-thing. It would give her time enough to explore the rest of her new house and clean her jacket.

Later, as luck would have it, she found some especially useful things. There was a study-room where hers had been: books on a bookshelf. A desk-drawer opened, she found a sock with a roll of strangely printed green paper. And there were a set of keys. The roll of paper turned out to be money. The keys were familiar enough; they were car keys. Ooh, good! She could use this to get started in this town. As soon as her clothes were clean, she would be on her way.

…

The reddish morning light illuminated the cloud-spotted blue sky when Selena stepped out of the house: having locked all of the doors. She zipped her leather jacket, feeling a little odd without a purse. She stood on the front porch and looked at her new neighborhood…which looked a great deal like the one she had come from. There was no fog or mist now, of course. She could look left and right to see all the houses. Only a few had cars parked out in front. Taking the keys out of her right pocket, she eyed the car parked in front of this house. It looked almost exactly like the car she had left behind.

Even up close, it looked so much like her original car. She unlocked the driver's side door and climbed in. It took her only a minute to get used to the feel of the vehicle. Some of the readouts were different and the inside smelled different. All the same, it was so much like _her _car. She started the engine, set it in _drive_, and was on her way.

According to some of the signs she glimpsed, this is the town of Pleasant River. The residential areas primarily consisted of two-story houses along suburban roads: trees and thickets of woods visible between and behind houses. The outer streets tended to border forests, which were still in abundance. A person had to drive quite a ways to get to the downtown, with its office buildings, small shops, bars hotels and travel agencies for tourist areas near the lake. (Don't call them tourist traps!) Of course, there were also important buildings for local government and health care. The downtown was where a person went to get most anything done, where a person had to go to get started..

She drove towards the downtown area by taking the main roads eastward: the afternoon street traffic surprisingly light. A left turn brought her onto another main road of two lanes with slightly more traffic. There were busses and small trucks driving along here as well. It wasn't tourist season quite yet; businesses wouldn't be especially busy until then. Tourists preferred warmer weather instead of the chill of Cold Season.

Now, where to…? She _really _needed some clothes. And though she wasn't hungry, she would be soon: The stuff of infection was out of her body now, and she would have to start eating food again. Then she would find out what kind of job the previous inhabitant of the house had: then take it. When she saw the first street of store-front businesses, she knew she had hit the downtown area. Maybe she could try the jeweler's to do something about this stupid thing around her neck. It was that or go to the hospital. She didn't think that the hospital could be trusted.

…

After parking the car, she walked into Venus Jewelers: a store with three long jewelry cases to display a dazzling array of pretty things. "May I help you, young miss…?" asked the thin man in red-tweed sweater and pressed slacks as he glanced her up and down. His voice had trailed off as he greeted her, and his eyes: cold beady ones: were focused on her throat. Or rather, on the band that pressed against her throat. It took an effort for him to make eye contact.

"Help me? Oh, I certainly hope so," she said, fingering the gold thing around her neck: which was beginning to hurt. "This thing… It is becoming especially inconvenient: if not dangerous. It's quite a story how it came to be where it is. But now I cannot remove the accursed thing! Can you assist me?"

His expression changed, became businesslike. Jewelry was his profession; he was the best jeweler in town: and probably the best for towns around. Selena tilted her head back slightly and pulled her hair back to give a better view of her neck. "Turn, please." She did, holding her hair to the side as so he could see. She hoped he didn't mind her leaning against the counter.

"Hmm…" he mused. "This is indeed an extremely precious example of Celtic jewelry. What you are wearing is a _torc_: which is made of very pure gold. The fact that _torcs _are primarily made of more sturdy metals is a testament to its rarity."

A _torc_? Is that what they called this? If the jeweler knew what it was, then he should have the knowledge to remove it. "Do you know how to take it off? That is, without having to decapitate me. I had a glimpse of the hospital in driving here. Yet hospitals are not the most convenient of places…"

"Young lady, it will be little trouble to remove the item. However, it will have to be damaged," he answered. "As stated, it consists of surprisingly pure gold. Gold is a soft metal by itself, which is why most modern gold jewelry is actually alloyed. Cutting it would be easy, as tragic as it would be."

Selena still had her back to him, but she heard the sadness in his voice in explaining that the _torc _had to be damaged. She had the idea that he would much rather cut off her head and remove the _torc_ that way: her blood acting as a lubricant for him to slide it off of her severed neck-stump. Then he would leave her body lying on the floor as he kicked away her head… _Ugh!_

She turned quickly around, half-expecting to see the jewelry-shop owner with a sword in his hands. "I don't especially want this," she said, suppressing the grotesque image. "If you want it, I could easily sell it to you…for a reasonable price. Just help me remove this thing: without injury to my neck. Is that understood?" Now she was nervous.

"Very well…" he said, the disappointment still audible. "A sturdy pair of aviator snips should do nicely. Wait here a moment. I shall fetch them." The thin jeweler then shuffled his way into the back of the store. He left her alone at the front of the shop with the jewel cases and a door at the left.

Selena stroked the warm metal of the _torc_ and turned to the right: to look out this shop's window. Just in time to see a shadow walk through the door.

_What? _Her fingers paused, and her mouth went open in shock. She blinked and slowly walked towards the door. What was that just now? For a moment, she thought she saw a shadow standing upright. Shadows weren't supposed to do that! It couldn't have been…

No, it couldn't have been. It must have been a trick of the light. The upright appearance of the shadow must have been someone passing by along the sidewalk. She had just gotten here; it couldn't be happening to _this _town, too! She quick-turned to face the sound of shuffling steps. "I have the solution, miss," said the shopkeeper, walking around the counter and coming over here. He presented her with the tool he had mentioned: held it in his palms.

"Thanks…" she said, carefully picking up the aviator snips. It looked like a cross between a wrench and a pair of scissors, with heavy blades in front and two wrench-like handles at the back. She _carefully _slid one part of the thing a bit beneath the tight fit of the _torc: _at the side of her neck. It hurt enough for her to wince. She worked the thing farther. Oh God, this _hurt!_ Tears coming to her eyes, she used both hands to _sque-e-eze_ the grips… _Snick!_

Staggering once, she dropped the tool and quickly pulled at the _torc_. Now that it was cut, it was easy for her to bend and pull off of her neck. It really was gold: very malleable. But why had she _not _at all been able to remove it before?

She stared at the thing in her left hand as she used her right to rub her aching neck, especially the place where it pressed her trachea. This was so much better! Not only could she breathe a great deal easier, she even _felt _better, as if the entire day was painted in fresh colors.

"May I?" he asked, holding out his left hand. Standing straight again, Selena held out both the severed neck-band and the tool. He pocketed the tool before taking the _torc, _regarding it. "Though damaged, I can tell you immediately that this item is worth no less than sixty thousand dollars. At the least. I could appraise it and cash it if you were willing to wait a few moments…before heading off to the hospital or wherever. I say sixty thousand dollars at a minimum as Mr. Longhorn would be _especially _interested in this piece. However…"

"Sixty thousand sounds fine," quickly answered Selena, swallowing, still happy to be rid of the thing and able to breathe normally. It had been around her neck for so long that she didn't notice how much it was restricting her breath. There was a small circular mirror atop the counter: which customers probably used to look at how necklaces looked on them. Now Selena was using it to look at the nasty dark-purple bruise around her neck: a blue-black coloration on her cream-pale skin that went all around. The skin had become so tender and damaged that there was actually a long thin cut on the right side of her neck within the bruising. If the _torc_ had been on her for any longer, perhaps it would have killed her. About the _dollars_… Is that what they called money in this world? "I shall take the dollars in coins…or whatever kind of units used."

"Excellent! I so happen to have it on hand for such prized transactions!" exclaimed the jeweler. He went behind the counter, disappearing into the back of the shop again. There was the sound of a side-door opening and quiet for a while: followed by further sounds of paper shuffling and other sounds. Selena decided not to look in the direction of the shop's window again. One glimpse of a shadow-person was all she wanted to see for today, even if she could have been imagining it…

The shopkeeper eventually came back with a freshly-sealed thick envelope and an official-looking typewritten sheet of paper. The envelope bulged with the thin stack of cash within it. "Just sign and date this, and I will surrender payment to you for the sum of sixty thousand dollars. It is all here as labeled on the envelope itself. This may seem crass, but this transaction is done in haste as I am quite sure that my client would adore this. Here is a pen…"

Selena returned her own pen to the right pocket of her jacket. She used the jeweler's pen to sign the sheet of paper. He then handed her the envelope: which had the shape of money in it. A great deal of money. "It was a pleasure doing business with you, miss. May we meet again."

_That is what you think, _she thought. Instead, she smiled as she opened her jacket to put the money in an inner pocket. This was really a lot of money: even if it was odd-looking to her. She then tossed up her right hand in a quick gesture of parting. "Goodbye, now!" Then she walked out, the vague idea of buying a bandage or something.

The jeweler saw her through the window as she stepped into her car. He waited for her to drive away before he went to the side-wall to pick up the handset of the wall-telephone. He pressed in six numbers: which gave him a direct connection to a secured message-recording machine. The only sign of the connection having been secured was one bell-tone. "I have acquired a damaged _Torc Na Sidhe _from a newcomerA pretty young woman with odd eyes. As for the _torc, _it is stained with blood from her neck…" He licked the inner part of the neckband, where a few streaks of Selena's blood stained it. "Birgin's blood. The _torc_ can be delivered immediately."

Having said that, the jeweler hung up the telephone and smacked his lips. Now he would wait for the call back. He eyed the damaged _torc _he held in his left hand. Someone else was looking at it as well, another presence in this room. The jeweler did not care; he had a _torc! _Mouth watering, he licked more of the blood.

…

3.

…

He strode through the forest, the man: his footsteps long and broad shoulders swinging with the aggression of his stride This powerful-looking man was dressed in clothing befitting an upper-classed forestry inspector or lumberjack: a plaid long-sleeved shirt with woolen undershirt, rugged slacks with the cuffs tucked into his boots, and a woolen cap atop his head. He was striding through these woods with an especially thick-barreled shotgun in his right hand, a boxy Geiger counter in his left. _Cl-click-click-click… _That Geiger counter was ticking slightly more rapidly now as he continued to stride through these woods: making his way between the trees, his boots sinking into the carpet-like layer of wet leaves along the ground.

Normally, a hunter in the forest would be stealthy and silent: much like a gentle breeze bearing a poison gas. Hunters usually wore camouflaged clothing and equipment. His or her human scent would be disguised with some kind of animal extract. And the only noises given off would either be accidental or with instruments designed to give off mating calls. That was how people normally hunted animals. _Cl-cl-click-click…!_

The _animals _that Samuel Longhorn hunted in this forest, they were not at all fooled by such things as clothes to blend in, or chemicals to disguise human scent. If he was hunting deer or bear, that would have worked. Even if he was hunting something so simple as squirrel prey, he would have walked with care. No, he strode boldly through this forest as if he owned it.

Because he did. This man, Samuel Longhorn, owned a great deal of real-estate in this town: some of which was this forest. _Especially _this forest. There was something very special about the land of Pleasant River: something not often found on Earth. It was Samuel Longhorn's hobby to find out just how special the land was, just as people made hobbies of exploring the Bermuda Triangle or Roswell, New Mexico. This was Samuel's special place. Part of undertanding it involved hunting the kind of _animals _that existed here

His walking brought him within sight of something that may or may not belong here: depending on one's opinion. It was a large, plastic-looking semi-sphere: half a transparent globe. He paused long enough to look over it. It was nearly as broad as his shoulders. He toed the thing, exposing its inside. It was a helmet of some kind, with elaborate machinery inside that must have been breathing tubes or voice communication. _Cli-cli-cli-cli-cli-click…! _He used the Geiger counter and found that the helmet-thing was more than mildly radioactive at close range: though the intensity of the radiation was restricted to a foot's distance of the thing. If he left it where it was, he would be fine. But if he was to do something like: say…put it over his head and leave it there for about a minute, he would probably likely develop at least six different kinds of cancer within a month. _Cli-cli-cli-cli-click-click-click…!_

Things of this sort appeared in this forest from time to time. Hmmph, _time _indeed. Samuel Longhorn had the distinct impression that the helmet was something more befitting something out of a space explorer's equipment storage. Others have come to this forest for their own reasons. And maybe, coming here was no fault of their own. The downed helmet must have meant that the newcomer met an awful end.

He walked on, leaving the helmet-thing behind just as he had left behind other such things. Some of the things that occasionally appeared in this forest would have certainly raised eyebrows of many technological researchers: or biologists. In fact, that which he was hunting would have certainly baffled or annoyed any number of animal scientists.

_Click-click-click-click… _He strode on through the forest, which was becoming darker as he continued: the sound of air-warning horns echoing off in the distance. It wasn't that it was anywhere close to sunset. Also true was how some of the trees were spotted with a dark, odd mold…if one could call the stuff mold. It more resembled human hair growing out of parts of the trees.

_Cli-click-cli-click-cli-click…! _Now his Geiger counter was ticking furiously. He glanced at the needle on the gauge: which was getting into a yellow zone he had marked with paint. No doubt, he was getting closer. He slowly swung the Geiger counter left and right until he found the direction in which the ticking was loudest. When he had a direction, he put it on a right-side loop of his belt to free up both his hands. It would take both hands to fire and operate the shotgun. That was especially true as the thing had a sadistic recoil and a booming report loud enough to wake the dead.

This part of the forest was more different. It was a great deal darker, with more mold-like growth on the trunks of the trees: enough to kill the trees. And instead of there being dead leaves on the ground, there was a reddish grit that dusted the bare ground. The air was colder here, more laden with moisture: much like a winter fog. All of the clicking from the Geiger counter told him that there was more going on here as well.

_Click-click-click… Cli-cli-cli-cli-cli-click..! _He came to where some _animals _were doing whatever it was they were doing: cavorting, carousing, or whatever a person wanted to call it. Those things over there resembled apes: green-haired apes with metal gas-masks bolted to the fronts of their heads. Some of the ape-like _animals _had odd-looking wrenches or rod-liked pieces of machinery in their hands…or paws. These they waved in the air as they galloped and danced counter-clockwise around a broken, rust-metal engine of some kind.

Crouching behind the tree, he checked his shotgun and patted his chest to be sure that he had spare magazines of ammunition. This shotgun was a combat weapon; it was loaded by way of magazine-fed shot-shells rather than individual rounds. These _animals _tended to have something resembling human intelligence in their actions and were just as dangerous: though _they_ themselves almost never had firearms. There were five animals; he should have enough ammunition to hunt them all.

Several things happened within just the space of six seconds. Samuel lied down flat against the leafy, wet ground: before he took aim and firedhis thick-barreled shotgun: a thunderous _blast _of sound. The massive recoil made his weapon twist upward as one of the ape-like _animals _was knocked backwards. _Arwhoo-o-o-gh!_

Surprised, the other ape-like _animals_ had let up a howl that was oddly amplified by the mechanical gas-masks bolted to their faces. They quickly turned away from the piece of machinery they were dancing around and promptly began to quickly lope in this direction, hobbling on squat, hairy legs. As quickly as that, things had gone from stable to insane.

Disgusting, pathetic creatures… Their muscular, hairy bodies were so distorted and misshapen that they could not even move fast if their lives depended on it. What they lacked in speed, the _animals _probably made up for in brute strength. The _animals _looked as if they could twist steel or tear off limbs as one could snap twigs off of a sapling tree.

But they could only do harm if they came close. Samuel had but to take aim and squeeze the trigger. _Kablam-m-m! _This time, the blast knocked down two of the things: sending up a dual splash of oily black ichor and blue sparks. The ichor was from their bodies, and the sparks had come from their electromechanical breathing devices. There was still one more hobbling over here, clutching an odd piece of tool-shaped metal.

One more thunderous _blast_ was what it took to make the last _animal _stop in its tracks. Thick oily fluid dribbled down from its chest as gurgling sounds came from the circular speaker on the electromechanical mask. It fell backwards, _slow-w-w-ly… _Then it lie still, on its back. It lie twitching as its gurgling sounds were quieted by the thick fluid filling the mask. Some electrical sparks exploded out of the sides of the mask, matched by some more twitching movements of the _animal's _body.

He stood up when he was sure things were clear. Four were down. There should be… "_Ah-ha!_" exclaimed Samuel when he saw the last _animal _over there on the chest-high chunk of machinery in the clearing. It had begun to rub the top of the engine-like thing, muttering in a low voice rendered incomprehensible by the electromechanical mask. Samuel had the idea that even if the mask was not in place, the language spoken would not have been understandable to him: or probably anyone else on this Earth. And maybe, the language would not have been understood for another hundred thousand years…

He would worry about that later. What concerned him was hunting this one. So he brought the stock of the shotgun to his shoulder, took aim and blasted the creature where it stood atop the machine. It made for another blast of sparks mixed with oily fluid as one more _animal _fell today. Its body had fallen out of sight behind the large chunk of machinery.

_Cli-cli-click-click-click… _Samuel had blasted all of the animals he had seen thus far. However, the Geiger counter at his waist was still clicking too quickly. There had to be one more _animal_ somewhere around here… Now, where…could…it…be? He slowly looked left, then slow-w-wly looked right, turning in a circle. _Click-click-click… _The _animal _was nowhere left or right, so it had to be up.

He looked up at the tall trunks of the fog-blurred trees when he saw something he had never seen before. Therefore, it took a good long three seconds before his mind could understand what his eyes were seeing. This _animal _had a furry torso, six human arms sewn onto it with what seemed like barbed wire. A bearded, lumpy face peered out from the _animal's_ head. "_Saty-a-graha!_ _Elkric… Oblama!" _it snarled. "_Gromph!_"

These strange words from the lumpy-faced _animal's _mouth sent an inexplicable shiver up Samuel's back. There was _something _in what the animal had said: something he would have to consider later. Right now, he just raised the shotgun to aim and fire. Before he could actually hit it with thick buckshot, the thing leapt off of the tree trunk up there and bounded away: leaping from tree to tree. "_Hah-h-h…! Elkirc oblama!_" came a distant taunt from up in the trees. Then it was gone.

_Click-click, click…click_… Muttering a curse, Samuel lowered his weapon as the clicking sound from the Geiger counter began to decrease. This meant that there were no more of those _animals _within the vicinity. _Click…click…click… _A few more sounds, and it went almost silent save for the occasional _click _sound.

He would have to act quickly again. He opened the clipped-down flap of a pouch worn on the right side of his belt. Inside was a hand-sized camera: the case sealed and reinforced to protect against radiation. It was the same kind of camera used by inspectors of nuclear power plants. There had to be pictures taken, firstly, of the odd-looking engine-machine that the _animals _were dancing around. It was already beginning to rust over, the foreign letters on the casing becoming unrecognizable. The _animals _themselves had to be photographed before their bodies dissolved into dark mush…

Good, that was done as well. It became easier to take pictures as this part of the forest was beginning to grow lighter. This also meant that all signs of the _animals _having been here were beginning to corrode and disappear. The bodies of the _animals _were already flattening out, the fur falling out and the skin beneath festering with large blisters. As for the masks bolted to their faces, they crumbled and cracked: just as their large piece of machinery was falling apart.

Soon enough, this part of the forest looked almost normal. The _animals _had dissolved and decomposed to the point that their bodies were but long piles of mush with plate-sized circles of rust where their electromechanical face-masks had been. As for the large chunk of machinery they were using or trying to use, it had rusted itself into a large chunky lump that made it resemble something one would find in any abandoned factory.

Samuel put away his camera and took out a small notebook from the upper-left pocket of his thick shirt. A pen out, and he began to take notes. He wrote down aspects of what the _animals _were doing and the sounds they made. And he wrote down his impressions of the _animal _he had seen in the trees: the one that escaped. What were the words the thing chanted and growled at him? Ah, yes… Now he remembered. This was excellent knowledge he could use in the furthering of his studies of local phenomena. And perhaps, one day, he could use this knowledge to enrich his own prosperity. Until then, it was time to return to his estate proper.

…

Just under eighteen minutes later, he emerged from the woods with his shotgun holstered on his back. This brought him to the rear gate-house: a view of the small field behind his mansion being visible beyond the gate itself. A few of his estate's security men were waiting there, along with a massive large bearded man in hunter's clothing and dogs on leashes. The dogs looked vaguely confused as they regarded Samuel: They smelled _bad _on him, but they also smelled the scent of their other master.

"Ah, Mr. Longhorn! Did you bag much?" asked the big hunter. "You were gone for at least an hour. Any longer and we would have come out to find you!" The dogs wagged their tails and strained at their leashes. "Maybe, one of these days we'll convince you to bring along a walkie-talkie. Ordinary ones don't work, I know. But there must be some kind of satellite setup we could use."

Samuel shook his head. "No, friend. That would not make for a great deal of assistance. Radio waves of all kinds are distorted and ruined. Even the microwave transmissions of portable phone-sets would fail to be transmitted properly: if at all. As for my prolonged stay within the wilds, time passes differently in some parts of the forest than in others. Perhaps we shall find the reason why some day."

"You're a _bra-a-ave_ man, Mr. Longhorn," responded the hunter. He looked past Samuel and out at the thick forest. "There are great big piles of stories about the forests of this town, about its history. Some university people think that they're just stories. We know better, don't we?"

"They are considered legends," affirmed Samuel. "Even legends have cores of truth to surround the shades of presumed fiction." That said, he walked towards the gatehouse and took his thick-barreled shotgun out of his back-holster and presented it to one of the guards. The guard removed the magazine of shells and checked the parts and functions of the shotgun. When he offered to clean it, Samuel shook his head. He much preferred to clean his own weapons just as he preferred to maintain his own studies of the _animals._

Shotgun slung over his right shoulder and his pockets full of written and recorded knowledge, he began to walk across the small field leading to the back of his mansion. It was an especially grand house: the largest in the entire town. It was not as large as the governor's mansion, but Samuel much preferred his more modest estate to any pompous shows of power. "_Mr. Longhorn!_" Someone was over by the back patio-area: a man dressed in slacks and tweed shirt, a dark dinner jacket worn over.

That would be the jeweler. Samuel would recognized that tweedy old man anywhere. The jeweler had probably brought that _torc _he had called about: the one that did not rust or decay. Between the _torc _and the information he had gleaned from his latest foray into the forest, this was getting to be an extremely bountiful day. And as the jeweler had described the former wearer of the _torc _as being a rather appealing young lady, perhaps he could have her photographed for surveillance: as well as aesthetic: reasons.

…

4.

…

It was soon enough getting close to sunset. The dying light of day cast the western skyline in clouded colors of yellow and crimson. It made for the landscape being given glowing tones… In the downtown area, the shops and office buildings seemed to glow with the colors of the sunset as things grew darker. Cars ambled along streets and turned on headlights, more of them traveling within this business-filled district. The town of Pleasant River was not as developed as other places, the landscape still primarily dominated with forests, yet this part of town was just as busy and crowded as any urban area during the evenings.

A dark-haired man in a beige-colored business suit walked into one of the small drinking places: a mile away from the mall. He walked between the tables and made his way towards the drinking bar across the way. Sitting atop the stool, he ordered something as other people talked about the town's business. With jukebox music playing and a television ranting, the cacophony of conversations made for a background din. But the dark-haired man in the beige-colored business suit had no problem listening in on select conversations.

"…All messed up," said the big man in jeans and tee shirt: his broad, shirt-covered belly half-hidden by the tabletop. He adjusted the bill of his baseball cap and looked down at his beer, then spoke loud enough to be heard above the din. "You'd think that the animal control people would be able to tell us what's going wrong. Why does _this _town have weird animal problems while others don't?"

"I hear you on that!" responded one of the men sitting opposite him. In contrast to his drinking companion, this man was tall and gangly: sitting hunched over, his tee shirt and jeans seeming to hang off him as he sat here. "My sister's part of the police department, and even _she _doesn't know all that's going on. It's like everybody is seeing a little piece of the picture and nobody's telling anybody else about the rest."

The third man at the table, another huge-bellied man in rugged clothes and baseball cap, shook his head. "Maybe we shouldn't complain. After all, it's not like it's scaring away the tourists or anything. Things have never gotten so out of hand that the town council had to pass curfew laws."

"That's because people around here know better," responded the skinny man. He took a sip from his drink. "Everyone who lives around here grew up listening to the same stories. And don't forget…" He leaned forward. "Some of those stories are true."

They paused, looked down at their drinks: letting the surrounding din of activity take over in place of conversation. While most television shows from New York and Hollywood joked about things like ghosts, flying saucers, devil-worshipping cults and other "crazy stuff," there was more than a little grain of truth behind such things. Things happened in Pleasant River that the townspeople much preferred not to freely advertise.

"Well, things have been tolerable since this town was founded," said the skinny man. "I'm guessing that things will still go on being fine. It's not like we have to play the town-emergency sirens and start loading up on busses to _evacuate_. Problems happen every so often, but it's nothing the police and animal control can't handle."

"Good enough!" responded that pot-bellied man. He raised his drink and took a gulp, set it down again. "What the tourists don't want to know can't hurt them. In fact, I've got the idea that a few of those tourists know about what's really going on. So it's not like the end of the world."

"Hah! That'll be the day!" cheered the other big-bellied man. "It's not like a hundred thousand of those _animals _are going to start learning how to use weapons and fog-making machines: to take over the town or anything! The ugly things are so messed up with pollution that they can barely walk!"

The tall, skinny man grinned. "Yeah, then I bet those space aliens are going to come down and abduct a few more of the locals! While they're at it, they may as well mutilate some more cattle and turning donuts in the cornfields: even if we _don't _have cornfields. The people making that Hollywood movie ought to hire _me _to write the script, not some no-name kids from some back-water towns."

"Hahh-h-h! Guess that counts us out, because we're _all _no-name kids from back-water. I guess they'll have to hire all of us!" exclaimed one of the pot-bellied men. They all drank to that! While they filled themselves with cheer and had a good time, they let thoughts of troubles slip into the background like so much din.

…

As much as Selena wanted to continue shopping, buying much-needed clothes and bathroom things, the pain made her stop. It began with her throat hurting again. She had believed the pain to be gone with the removal of the too-tight _torc: _which she gladly sold for a great deal of money. But when she had left one women's clothing shop, the sharp pains spread from her throat to other parts of her body…like a cancer. It spread to her midsection and making her feel as if she had been struck with a pitchfork. It, the _pain_, also went upwards to fill her head with nausea…

A sudden swirling nausea closed over her when she made it to her car, which was parked in the small parking lot next to a hat store. Passers-by took worried glances at her but kept going on their way. Good, she didn't want to draw attention to herself. What would she say to them? _Oh, I'm sorry,_ she imagined herself saying. _I'm just experiencing some nasty effects of transition. When my body's chemistry is fully adjusted to your world, I'll be quite fine! _Then the men with the red trenchcoats would put her in a brown leather strait jacket and lock her up in a tower near the ocean. That is, unless the people of this world had different customs for treating those who didn't subscribe to their religion.

"_Hah!_" she laughed out loud, feeling another wave of nausea over the pain. Somehow, with half-numb fingers, she used the car keys to open the car's door. She tossed her shopping bags into the passenger-side seat, then climbed in herself and closed the door. This abated the nausea somewhat.

Was she in good enough condition to drive? She just had to drive. So she did, starting the car and maneuvering it out of the parking lot. So long as she didn't move her head too quickly, Selena found that she was able to maneuver this little car quite well. Driving did not involve a great deal of physical effort. Now, if she had to _walk _back to the house, that would have been a separate issue.

Somehow, she made it back to the residential streets: back to her place. The car had to be parked in front… Good. Maybe it was parked a little lop-sided, but so what? Close enough. She staggered out of the vehicle and made her way towards the front porch and leaned against the door as she sought the key to get in. It was easy to spot; the house key was red for some reason.

…

Selena closed the door. Now she was in the living room, and the sofa was close enough. Part of her wanted to get over to the bathroom to have a good fit of vomiting, but she doubted if she had the energy to do that. Everything seemed covered over with pain and dazzling darkness as she lie down on the sofa: still wearing the same clothes she wore in the downtown district and in her leather jacket. As her eyes closed, she had the idea that there was a bus outside, driving down the street. It was probably on fire. This odd thought_…carried her into…the darkness…_

_…_

_There were voices talking in a language she could somehow understand. Though she never remembered studying the language, she understood the meanings: as if the thoughts were coming straight into her mind. She opened her eyes and found that most everything was almost totally dark. Were it not for the spotlight shining down on her, she wouldn't have been able to see. Why was it so dark in this living room?_

_The voices were coming from the hallway that led to the bedroom and the basement stairwell… Yes, the basement was where she had to go. Because that was where the voices were coming from, the voices excitedly chittering. Come on down, Selena! We want to show you the fun you can have with the main hole in your basement. It'll be good fun. You'll have the most exciting time of your existence._

_Part of her wanted to get back to the sofa and pull her leather jacket over her head, huddled up until light returned to the day. She somehow knew that was impossible: Daylight did not come to this place. The way to go was the hole in her basement. She knew it was wrong. She also knew that the promised excitement would be there to be had if she went down and in._

_Down the stairs, the basement was illuminated with low red light. Someone or something had painted the walls black and coated the floor with some color that also appeared red. The main hole was right here: the sides lined with what looked like living flesh. So she went in, feeling a thrill…_

_…_

_When she recovered…_consciousness, Selena found herself feeling especially warm and damp. She was outside, lying on a cracked and uneven sidewalk somewhere outside. Outside…where? Sitting up and looking around showed her that it was a foggy night: streetlamps barely providing for illumination enough. The streetlamps, they lined this darkened residential street of square-looking houses. Also odd was the way the air smelled: smelled like the air outside of a chemical factory.

She stood and was only feeling slightly dizzy. The houses along this street were not only blocky in appearance, but they also seemed to be made oddly. This nearest house was relatively well-lit by a streetlamp, and she could see that the structure was made out of large metal bricks: lead bricks. And the front door resembled something one would see attached to a furnace. She bent over to peer at the grass in this gloomy light… It looked like black grass, though Selena wasn't sure if this was really grass.

There must be a way… Selena began to walk along the sidewalk. The same seemed to be true of all the other houses in this dark and foggy place. All of them were built the same, with the same yards. Some of them had chunky shapes in the front yards that must have been junk or machinery. If some of it was working, she could not be sure. She didn't want to particularly step into stranger's yards to take closer looks. What if those machines were dangerous?

A sudden noise made her quickly look left. _Clank! _It was the sound of metal-striking-metal. _Clank-clank! _"_Oblamah!" _came the shout from over there, said in a high-pitched voice. "_Wanna-nak-naki! Doo-si-doo eklric!_" The voice belonged to what seemed to be a short man in red coveralls. _Clank! _He was using a complicated and rusty-looking wrench to hit the base of a streetlamp: making it flicker. Then came the rhythmic sound of his tool banging at the streetlamp.

"You! Do not _do _that!" she shouted in indignation. "That's a light! We _need _light! Should…you…." Her voice and confidence faltered as the short man in coveralls stopped his efforts to turn his attention to over here. He slowly rose to his feet and turned to face her. It was one of the most wrong-looking faces she had ever seen.

It looked as if someone had injected parts of that short man's face with salt-water and smeared his skin with mucous…before finishing the job by beating his jaw with lead bricks. Lumps and bumps distorted the right side of his face, while the left side looked smashed in: the dark eyeball on the left lower than the right. The short man-thing then tilted back his head and let loose a _how-w-wl! _Soon, there were sounds of scampering feet from the darkness at the left and right sides of the street: within the shadows of the houses. Little men were coming to get her.

Selena ran back the way she came. With growling sounds getting closer, she just kept running as fast as she could along the uneven sidewalk. Why the _Hell _was it so accursedly crooked? If the builders of the sidewalks had time to make their houses out of lead bricks and install thick metal doors, the least they could have done was maintain their sidewalks before they died off or whatever. As it was, it was hard to keep up a good running pace away from those things: who seemed better-fit at running along the sidewalk.

The way out was not far: the streetlamp up ahead! Though all the houses seemed the same, Selena felt that the streetlamp was definitely the way out of here. She found that there was a ladder built into the pole of the streetlamp. This she quickly scrambled up, the heels of her boots and her sweat-slicked hands somehow finding easy purchase.

_Clank, clank-clank! _They began to strike at the base of the streetlamp as Selena got off of the ladder and shimmied along the top part: the part attached to the light itself. Because she was such a thin person, not eating as often as she should, she was lithe enough to move. Or maybe it was because desperation led her to this.

Whatever the case, she found it especially easy to get over to the electric lamp part of the streetlamp itself. And she…_climbed_ _into the light itself. She pulled herself up into the glassy brightness: finally tucking in her legs and getting in. The sounds of angry little men in red coveralls was fading behind her…_

_…_

_When she awakened, she was…_sprawled on the floor of the living room, her body in a vaguely indecent position. She moaned, slowly sitting up. "_Oh no…_" she said, peering in the gloom of the perfectly ordinary living room. Something now felt very wrong. A bright yellow glow was flickering through the curtains. Quickly staggering to stand, she went over to the window that looked out on the street. She was just in time to see a large, burning vehicle driving along the street and out of sight. "_Please God… Please, no!_"

But no… It was true. The burning bus was here, in _this _town. _They_ must have followed her here, though the furnace. It was a six-million-to-one chance that they would have followed her here. But if _they _were capable of invading this town in the other world, the town that was once Silent Hill, then _they_ could certainly come here. _They _were here. Selena hoped that _they _did not do what they did in the world she had come from, because hoping was all she could do.


	2. Chapter Two?

Silent Hill: The Dream Machine

by Elliot Bowers

…

Chapter 2

…

It had been an awful night…the worst kind of nightmares. Though she did not exactly remember what the nightmare had been about, she just remembered it having a girl's beautiful and sad singing heard through the wind. The wind had been blowing through a ruined, night-covered land with fallen buildings: the ruins being obliterated by legless, hairy creatures armed with rusted hammers. It was absolutely horrid. She would not have wanted to be in such a place.

After a hot shower and dressing herself, an outfit of blue jeans and buttoned-down shirt, she intended to fill another place once occupied by the previous inhabitant of this house. She inhabited his house, drove his car, used his space. Now she would work his job: as a janitor at the town's primary children's school. People would probably think her a stranger on sight…unless they understood that she was a _replacement_.

Yes, she was a replacement; that was the safe way of thinking of her. She stepped in where another person stepped out. And as a replacement, she was going to fulfill his job though she did not need the money. Selling that _torc _gave her enough cash to live off of for several years to come. Still, someone had to do Arnie's job, to do what Arnie had done. Selena felt obligated to fill that roles in reality left open when he had to leave when she stepped in. It was not as if it was the end of the world if she did not, but she felt she had to do this, drive over to Arnie's place of work and work his job.

…

Twenty minutes of driving this car, she was almost there. She soon found that Pleasant River Elementary School: Arnie's place of work: was not far from the house. Morning traffic was somewhat thick, plenty of cars on the roads, but she dealt with it. She noticed that this area was more heavily forested, more greenery and trees. Selena had the idea that suburban schools tended to be hidden away behind trees, fences and greenery for the sake of symbolism. Schools seemed to shelter children away from the reality around them: the world of adults.

If this was anything like the town she had come from, the children would need that sheltering. It, the world of adults, is a world of cruel and greedy people out to seek money and power simply for the sake of greed. Children themselves became adults when they realized that the "adults" in charge of the world were actually no better than terrible children themselves: that the men who run the world are just as cruel, selfish and narrow-minded as the worst-behaving brats a person could know. Adults would do anything and everything they could to get power: even if it meant unleashing forces beyond their control. And if they did not get their way, they were willing to destroy the world in an angry temper-tantrum of nuclear weapons, lab-bred plagues and deadly chemicals. Which, of course, would leave room for whatever creatures there would be to take over after humanity was gone.

Selena slowed and turned this car to the right. This brought her to the road that cut through the patch of forest in getting to the elementary school itself. Staff parking was to the right. There so happened to have been a conspicuously open parking space waiting for this car, too. Filling a role, that is what she was doing now. As she drove closer to the school, she thought about how to make a start.

She parked the car in the side-lot for faculty. This done, she glanced up in the rear-view mirror. She didn't wear makeup beyond just a little lipstick; there was no problem there. Her hair was fine: her straight dark hair never needing to be brushed often. It was a good thing, how her hair tended to behave itself. As for her improvised janitorial outfit of jeans and buttoned blue shirt, practical shoes, it would have to do. She got out of the car and walked around towards the front of the building.

…

Inside, it was much as she expected it to be: other than some differences in wall-colors and materials. There was a wide-open space with halls to the left and right. Ahead was the office, plainly labeled "Administration." The school children were not yet here; it was still quiet enough to hear typing and talking coming from the office. Now, she would see just how the school's staff would react to her arrival: either with confusion or acceptance.

_Cl-click…_ She opened the door and entered the administrative office: which had a somewhat lower ceiling than the outside hall. Two female secretaries in frumpish clothes: one skeletally thin and the other matronly plump: were sitting back to back at two desks, chattering away to each other and typing on electric typewriters. That would be paperwork; no administrative office anywhere would be complete without it. They stopped talking and typing to look over at who just walk in. She had best talk…

Good morning…!" she said. "I am Selena Millieux, the replacement. It is I who will do whatever it was that he once did. My experience regarding this sort of labor is rather limited to voluntary functions. However, it should be well within my capabilities. Do I check in here before getting to work, to begin?"

The plump secretary frowned. "Hmm… Your name is Se-lena… _Me_-_you_?" She barely managed to properly pronounce Selena's surname. "Haven't heard of _you _before. We know that something happened to Arnie… Lord knows what. About you, let me check the records to see if you're really in the system." She wheeled her chair over to the filing cabinet to the right of the desk. "Hmm… That's an 'M,' right? Can't tell with these foreign names sometimes." She opened the second to last filing cabinet and worked her big fingers through the files. "Huh? Oh… Why is it spelled 'Millie-Lex' or something? It's M, i, l, l, i, e, u, x… Is that your name? Don't remember putting you on the payroll, but here it is."

"I was something of a last-minute replacement," said Selena. "Not that I had at all known the previous janitor, but it just may be that there was a connection between him and I. Call it fate, or the hand of God, if you will..." As much as she hated to openly talk of religion, she felt she had to do so now in order to explain things.

While the thin secretary looked on sympathetically, the chubby one looked through the folder: as if she could find Selena's deepest and most sinister secrets in there. "Well, if you say so… Everything _looks _okay. You'll have the same hours and pay as Arnie. The only female janitor in this school's history… Hmmph, that's funny! Says here you have the same SIN as Arnie."

This time, it was Selena's turn to take on confusion. Everyone had sins. What did this have to do with this conversation. "The same…_sin? _We are all sinners of varying sorts. Yet for me to be a person so similar…" She saw the secretary angrily shake her head.

"No, not _that _sin! I mean _S_…_I_…_N!_ _Social Identification Number!_ Sweetie, you _must _be a foreigner, not knowing what a _sin _is? How long have you been in this country? You speak pretty good, but you've got that accent. I can tell you weren't born here…"

"I have not been here especially long," responded Selena. "I was, in fact, born somewhere else. Coming here was something done more out of survival and necessity than whim." _And what I'm saying to you, _she thought to herself, _is more true than you would want to know._

"Were things _that _hard where you came from? Aww… I've heard things were tough in a lot of places," chimed in the other secretary, the skinny woman. "There are countries in the world where people starve to death, and lots of pollution. What about those _ethnic conflicts _with _warlords, _too_…_! Were _you _from one of those countries?"

"One could put it that way," said Selena, thinking about the last moments she spent in the other world. If one thought of the object of worship as being a _warlord_ and the fact that no one needed to eat anymore there, then that was the truth. It was as much the truth as coming from 'another country.'"

…

Done in the office, she walked out of the office and gently closed the door behind her: standing in the open space at the front of the school. Now where _could_ the janitorial supplies be…? As a child, she had been a student of a school such as this. If this was just another incarnation of the elementary school she had come from, the janitorial office should be somewhere along the halls right of the entrance. Meaning she would have to turn left. If not, she could just keep walking until she saw it.

So, seek she did: walking through the especially quiet halls, closed doors to the left and right. There was just the ever-so-slight low thrumming of machinery somewhere in this building. It must be the boiler-room machinery at work. Odd, it sounded a bit like the heavy generators she had heard a lifetime ago. Since when do boilers and generators sound the same? Perhaps she could ask the others of the janitorial staff.

There was a thick wooden door marked _Janitor: _different from most all the other doors in this building, the doors that led to classrooms. She turned the heavy metal handle of the thick wooden door and walked in: entering a hard-floored, industrial-style space the size of a small recreation room. There were three desks at the right, three lockers behind themNext to that was bolted a cabinet marked _cleaning supplies._ Along the left wall were industrial mops, floor buffers, brooms and a few kinds of brass-colored machinery she had never seen before.

One of the odd-looking cleaning machines along the left wall had the _radiation _insignia on them. Now _this _caught Selena's attention. She bent over to look at it: hands on knees and eyes looking. It, the machine, was a square metal cylinder on four wheels: its case made out of a dull and brassy sort of metal. The circular _radiation _insignia was carved and painted into the top of the machine's casing, next to the control panel with a thick knob atop it. Why would something like _this _be in a janitor's office? For that matter, what were those other odd-looking, gold-colored machines for?

There was the sound of thick-soled footsteps and chuckling coming from just outside the hall, walking in. Selena quickly stood up straight and turned. In walked two large, thick-armed men in buttoned blue shirts, jeans and thick work-shoes. They had brooms with them and were talking about animals or something: but both of them came to a sudden stop when they saw Selena. Their eyes quickly went up and down her body, making her feel self-conscious.

The janitor on the right broke the silence: breaking out in a big grin that seemed to spread his otherwise narrow face. "Hey-hey…! Good morning, lady. You've got to be Arnie's replacement." He walked on over, making an effort to keep eye contact. "My name's Smith, been working here since forever." He held out one of his thick hands. Selena shook it. "And he's Karl…"

"That's with a 'K,' not a 'C,'" explained the other janitor. He also stepped forward to shake hands. Selena did so, feeling vaguely uncomfortable with this custom. "You'll have to excuse Smith. He's a pretty forthright kind of guy."

"Oh, and sorry about gawking you like that," said Smith. "It's just that we didn't expect mean old Arnie's replacement to be… Well, _you_ know." He shrugged, putting on a sheepish grin and gestured in her general direction with both hands.

"My presence brings about discomfort," she said, putting one leg in front of the other and crossing her arms across her midsection. Taking this pose was less obvious than, say…stooping over and crossing her arms across her body. Despite being fully clothed, she felt somewhat naked; the attention given her by Smith had made her more self-conscious. "All the same, I have the sincere hope that you two can maintain a semblance of professionalism in my presence. To hear such words upon our first meeting brings about rather negative connotations."

The janitor on the left clapped a hand on his buddy's shoulder. "What Smith's trying to say is that we don't usually get _females_ working here. What the school district usually does is put women in secretarial or teaching assistant kind of jobs. That, or you work in the administrative office. Yeah, big dumb What's-Her-Name oughta be _our _assistant to scrub the bathroom floors, not working in the principal's office! At least the vice principal would probably want you close. After all, he's a guy. I've got a daughter who's probably about your age. She tells me and my wife about problems all the time."

Selena frowned. Was this how things were in this world? It probably meant that the vice principal would probably only be interested in one thing. That _one thing _was what often seemed to come to mind whenever she first dealt with men. Maybe that was why women were usually seen as smarter; it came from less time thinking about sex. Men seemed to be thinking about sex most all the time, and so all women had to do was think about something other than sex most of the day.

Now here was a man whose attention was suddenly distracted by her body. Wearing loose, ugly jeans with frumpish tops would never help; she'd still walk around with her face and neck exposed. Her religion actually encouraged the wearing of clothes that clung to the body or exposed skin, but she never really took to the practice. She found that it made men's eyes stay in places they didn't belong.

The one named Karl shook his head. "We've got to apologize ahead of time. We don't mean to pry. It's just that you're a really pretty lady. There are only two male teachers here, and one of them lost his wife to a truck accident six years ago… Been dating random women ever since. Careful he doesn't sweep you up easily, too."

Smith snickered, tilted back his head and guffawed. "_Hah-h-h! Sweep!_ A janitor getting swept! That'll be the day!" Still smiling, he added, "Yeah, and speaking of work… I guess this means that: since you're Arnie's replacement… _You're_ in charge of _us!_ Wait 'till my wife gets word of this."

"See this real wooden desk?" asked Karl. He walked behind it and pulled out the chair. "It's _your _desk, now." He gestured towards drawers built into the desk: to the right of where the chair went under the desk. "There's plenty of paper for making notes and memoranda for us, your loyal subjects. Of course, since you're in charge, you'll have to write up the _S _forms for when we need to request cleaning supplies and equipment. Or even those darned expensive repairs. Janitorial equipment doesn't come cheap, especially some of the equipment _we_ have to use! _Animal _cleanup requires technical knowledge, if you know what I mean." He stared.

The tone of voice from that last statement gave Selena a slight shiver. Suddenly, the thin material of her long-sleeved shirt wasn't enough. This room suddenly seemed colder though it was next door to the hot boiler room itself. "What do you mean by that?" she asked. Meaning, just perhaps there were _animals _in this world as well.

I thought Arnie would've let you know or somethin'?" asked Smith. "You mean you _don't know_ about the _animals_? Geez… You've _really_ got to know about the _animal _problem if you're going to be head of this school's janitorial staff. Dealing with _animals _on this property is our responsibility. People used to think we just mop floors and scrub walls. Truth is, in this town, we do a _Hell _of a lot more than that… Behind the scenes… You know? Nah, you don't know. Not yet." He walked towards the door. "Follow me. We got time before the kids come in. We'll have to show you what we caught this morning: something that snuck out of the boy's bathroom. Nasty thing probably crawled outta the toilet!"

…

Selena followed the two janitors through the school's southern hall: then out through a set of wooden doors. It was still a vaguely gray-colored day outside. "Come on. The shed's over here," said Smith. They were over by a small shed on the grass just outside the school's rear entrance, Karl and Smith going in first.

She went into the little industrial-style building, expected to find a shed full of lawn-care and landscaping equipment. Her expectations were only half-correct. There _was _landscaping equipment in here. Except, along the right side of the little room, there were six large cages made of brass: the bars of the cages attached to small pipes, connecting them to large machines set in a corner. This machinery gave off a low and oddly soothing hum. But oddest and unnerving was one of the things _in _the right-most cage.

At the least, it was an _animal. _It resembled a brown, flattened football made of brown leather, with five little legs attached and its head tucked in. She couldn't see the body moving with breath. Maybe the thing didn't breathe? Or it was asleep, and she couldn't see its leathery body moving. As for what it was, Selena had never heard of such a thing before.

While Karl turned a small valve on the machinery in the corner, Smith walked on over to the cage with the thing in it. "Thisis an _animal. _I don't mean those cuddly things that you bring home from the pet-shop, or the furry things in the petting-zoo… I don't even mean those things ever seen in _any _darned zoo you'd find on this planet!"

Karl stood up, no longer kneeling by the machines over there. "Yeah, they're from somewhere elsealright…" He peered at Selena's face. "I have the impression that you're not exactly a local, either. Ever see any of these things from where you come from?"

"Indeed…" said Selena, pierced by Karl's gaze. She stepped over to the cage with the _animal _within it. The leathery, circle-bodied creature untucked its little head. This revealed a little head topped with brown hair and a little human face: its eyelids flickering. She thought to herself, _Oh my, what is this? _She put a hand to her throat, feeling her own pulse racing as she took slow steps away from the cage. She had seen that face before, a long time ago. "No… Please no…"

"Hey, girl! The thing can't be _that _ugly-looking!" said Smith, stepping closer to Selena. He expected her to swoon and faint. She didn't. She was a strong-spirited person and able to withstand sight of this. "I though you said '_Indeed,_' when we asked if you saw this kinda _animal _before. Now you act like they're a big shock. If you're gonna be Arnie's replacement, you've gotta deal with this…and more! What the _Hell's_ goin' on with you, girl? You can't take being around an _animal?_"

Bristling under the remarks, Selena righted herself. She rubbed her palms on the hips of her jeans. "I do apologize for my rather unsightly reaction. Yet the fact that this town has an infestation is unsettling. I did not expect this."

Well, here it is!" exclaimed Smith, gesturing towards the cage. "It's here. It's not a phony. And it's just one kind of trouble keep getting around here. We give these things to the Animal Control people for more pay: which makes this part of our job extra-profitable."

You didn't react as badly as some people would, seeing an _animal _like thisfor the first time," began Karl. "Didn't faint, either. And since you already know what we're saying, I think you could be a lot more useful to us after all. That is, 'til the male faculty and administration see you and want to put you in a desk job."

…

2.

…

School busses: great big sun-colored vehicles with diesel engines and smoky exhausts: were already driving over to the front of the school. It was nearly time for the day to begin. There would soon be noise and activity enough. And just maybe, the children would be too distracted to notice them.

They, the municipal Animal Control personnel, drove up in an unmarked white van. Though the tires were thoroughly covered with reddish mud, the body of the vehicle itself remained glisteningly white. Yes, it was white, _pure _white: its surface not even marked by logos. The van was unmarked with any official town logo or color because even the knowledge that Animal Control was in a neighborhood was enough to make for a panic; problems with certain kinds of _animals _was that much trouble.

So this white van drove around to the location of today's business: the back of the school. Parked next to the shed, the two Animal Control personnel climbed out of the van. One was a tall and serious-looking man of dark hair and gaunt face. The other was a blonde woman lacking in height. Both wore white coveralls and beige workshirts. Both wore similarly flat expressions as they walked around to the back of the van and opened it up. The blonde-haired woman then watched as part of the van's rear lowered a wheeled golden cage to the ground: This was a hydraulic lift built into the van's cargo area.

The cage lowered to the ground, they began to take it towards the shed. Both knew what they would find in the shed without having to be told. And this cage was more than adequate to deal with whatever the school's janitors had caught with their own equipment. The janitors had adequate equipment. Yet it was not as advanced as the kind used by Animal Control.

…

"Praised be!" exclaimed Smith, taking his feet off of his desk. "They're here!" The intercom speaker mounted high on the janitorial office-wall had requested the presence of the janitorial personnel at the landscaping shed…at the rear of this building. That could only mean that the Animal Control personnel had come to handle business. "Let's go, Selena… Karl… Let's see that creepy equipment of theirs in action."

Karl shook his head. "You've got to forgive the man, Selena. He gets pretty excited about people from the Animal Control department. Since the _Animal Control_ people have to deal with animals more often than we do, they get better equipment."

"When you speak of the equipment, you refer to the brass cages in the landscape equipment storage shed?" asked Selena as Smith grabbed something from one of the closets and walked towards the door. Selena herself stood up out of her chair at the center desk. "They seem like especially elaborate cages already. Can there be anything even more sophisticated in caging _animals?_"

vSmith stood with the door open. "Come _on/ _We can't keep those people waiting forever. Karl, you know how they get. They always act as if they have sticks stuck in uncomfortable places… Yeah, _that_ kind of attitude. So let's… _go!_"

"Quit knocking their attitude! You'd act the same way if you had to deal with _animals _as long as they do," countered Karl. But he did get up and walk towards the door as well. "Ah well… This should at least be a little interesting: though I'd rather be mopping up some kid's throw-up. The Animal Control personnel managed to help us out in making some of our own stuff, so a little more tech knowledge can't hurt. Coming?"

"Very well…" said Selena. There was a slight quivering in her voice, coming through her words. The thought of Animal Control personnel somehow made her nervous. She did not and could not understand why. After all, anyone who acted to eliminate the _animal _problem should be a friend of hers. It was simply unfortunate that such professionals did not exist in her old town.

…

Selena thought that they were mannequins first. They were man and woman, plastic-skinned realistic dolls dressed in white coveralls and gold-colored sweaters. Their bodies and eyes were stock-still: not even their clothes moving in the breezy chill of the cold wind. For what reason would one put mannequins here, of all places? And why pose them standing before golden cages?

Only when their heads turned to look here did she realize that those two were actually _people. _They had to be the ones sent by the Animal Control department, _not _mannequins. Smith was the first to walk over to them, walking over to the man of the team. "Hiya, guy!" he cheered as he shook hands. The Animal Control professional returned the handshake in a basic, stiff kind of way: merely imitating and matching Smith's gesture. This caused a sleeve of the man's arm to come up, giving Selena a glimpse of a golden wristband.. "Still stiff as ever, I see. Heh-heh-heh…" He glanced at the blonde woman. "Your girlfriend seems just about as cheerful as you are…as usual."

"Smith, could you let up a little?" admonished Karl. "These two are Animal Control professionals. They're _professionals. _They can't exactly have the kind of relationship you're always thinking about. Besides… You're making a bad impression in front of our new boss!"

Their new boss…would be Selena. She _did_ begin to feel stirrings of indignation at some of Smith's somewhat raunchy, misogynist behavior. "I choose to tolerate the various faults of your behavior… Only to an extent, however," she said, beginning to take hold the edges of her new authority. "_Only_ to that vague extent. Your behavior is understandable within the realm of Arnie's command. Yet not within mine."

Smith raised both hands. "Jeez… Okay, okay! Since everybody's on my case, I'll back down. No more talk of nooky or any of that. Politics!" He looked at the blonde woman in white coveralls. "Looks like I've gotta put up an apology to you, too. No offense, okay? Just trying to get you two to loosen up a little."

The blonde female in white coveralls tilted her head to the left for a moment: as if analyzing Smith. Her lips quivered for a second as if she was having difficulty thinking up words to say. Then came her words. "You have presented what has the sound of an apology. It meets the criteria of tolerance."

"Okay!" responded Smith. "We can work with that! Yeah, at least you didn't ask for me to wave burnt meat in the air or fetch some mistletoe to get your forgiveness." This time, both of those two people in white coveralls glared at him.. "Ouch, the burning stare! Looks like I hit a nerve. Don't you two _ever _loosen up? All I'm trying to do is… Hey!" Selena stepped forward.

"Do listen to me," she said, standing right in front of Smith. "Do you realize what these two are? Do you seek to impress them…or me with an overly confident attitude? You have not been yet in my charge for an hour, and I have already seen a variety of faults within your behavior!" She turned to face the Animal Control personnel. "On behalf of this man, I apologize and summon the notion of 'business before pleasure.' That is, to say if we _are _to consider any social pleasantries. Clearly, you two have come for the purpose of _Animal Control, _and we shall see to it before you are delayed further. What is it that you require of myself at this time?"

"You must open the way into the place of metal," explained the woman in white coveralls, her voice still flat. "We cannot go where we are not invited. It is one of the regulations put on us by authority." She paused. "We are not…independent."

There was something familiar in what the woman in white coveralls had just said. It gave Selena the idea that there was more to these "Animal Control" personnel than just their job title. And the stiff, almost soulless ways they moved and spoke, there was something vaguely inhuman about it. "I understand," she said.

"Your obeisance is accepted and noted," answered the male in white coveralls. His voice was just as flat and austere. "Data regarding local patterns of behavior often reveals questionable efficiency. This is a favorable change."

Nodding once to acknowledge the statement, Selena went to the door of the storage shed and opened it. The two then wheeled in the gold-barred cage of theirs. Selena noticed that the metal-top of the cage was not plain metal; she saw that the top was actually inlaid with thousands of square and straight lines: almost like ancient carvings or electrical machinery. She remembered being told that the Animal Control personnel having more elaborate equipment for dealing with _animals_.

Inside the storage shed, those two went to work. The blonde woman in white coveralls opened the top of the cage: the top opening like two doors. This, while the man in the matching uniform walked over to the janitor's cage that had the small _animal _in it.

"_Gra-a-a-gh! Oblamah… Satya-a-agraha!" _squealed the little leathery bodied animal, it's little human-like head going back and forth. It also began to struggle with its five little legs, squirming and kicking, but the man's two-handed grip was as firm as an electromechanical vice. Soon enough, the turtle-sized creature calmed and weakened to the point of lethargy as it was being held by the man in white coveralls.

It became much calmer when lowered within the golden cage, closing its eyes and slumping: the little limbs going still as its little face relaxed into something like sleep. The woman in white coveralls closed the lid. A _click _meant that the cage had locked itself.

…

The unmarked white van left with its load of _animals _some minutes ago, leaving Selena and the two men to return to the janitorial office. Now they were back here again. Smith put his hands in his pockets and shuddered. "I go out of my way to be polite every time they show up. But what do they do? They give me the cold shoulder. Especially the blonde girl… Those big blue eyes of hers might as well be ice lakes! Now _that's_ rude. You can't expect a man to be all nice-nice to people who act like secret agents from the government…or cyborg-robots! Those two really give me the creeps, you know? I just don't get 'm!"

"I can understand their feelings and behavior," explained Selena, sitting with her legs crossed, hands atop a knee. "If it was within their abilities to summon forth warmer feelings towards humanity, such would have been done. The expressions exuded from their being is reflexive of their nature." She gave a slight shrug. "That is, of course, given how nature is a rather arbitrary distinction at times. More subject to analog interpretations rather than digital."

"Nature? Hah!" exclaimed Smith. He took some kind of brassy, book-sized device out of a closet and brought it over to his desk: which was next to Selena's. He sat on top of his desk, put his feet in the chair and leaned over to get a cleaning cloth out of a drawer. This cloth he spread on the desktop next to himself. "Those two don't act naturally, that's for sure. I've seen more soul in _trees _than those two! I mean, a man can _talk _to a tree. Talking to those two is like trying to hug a streetlamp after the end of the world…." At this point, Smith had opened up the case of the device and began putting thick-looking cogs on the cloth atop the desktop. "But about talking to trees… It's okay as long as trees don't answer back. _Right_, Karl?"

If Karl only looked vaguely uncomfortable before from the morning encounter with the Animal Control personnel, now he looked tortured. He answered, "Maybe we can get inspiration from being around trees, in forests. Trees don't have to talk to be heard, you know."

Smith took another thick-looking cog out of the device he was disassembling, set it atop the cloth next to the other parts he was taking from the device. "That's right! Trees don't talk," he said, staring at the part he was working on. "They _don't _talk in multiple languages. They _don't _tell about what goes on in the woods. And they _sure as Hell _don't bleed every morning when the last night's fog gets too bad!" He stopped working on the machine and looked at Selena. "_Don't _you agree?"

That depends on the severity of the contamination," she blurted. Karl looked at Selena. Smith paused in cleaning the parts of the brassy device, his smirk frozen on his face. "I mean to say, it depends on one's situation. A person in the grip of drugs or sickness would be under deliria enough to believe that such things were happening."

Smith shook his head. Hey-hey! Is that the same thing as saying that it _could _or _couldn't _be real? You've seen that _animal_ we've caught and let get taken away. Now, people from most anywhere else in the world would say that the _animal _couldn't be real. _You _saw it. _Karl _saw it. The principal saw it, too. How many people would it take to see something before it's real, huh?"

"We're doing our job," said Karl. "Things aren't getting _that _bad. We don't have the best and most-advanced cleaning equipment. Still, we can do a competent job. If things _were _getting to the point of trouble, we'd get new help from somewhere. _Right, _Smith?"

At this point, Smith returned his eye-focus to the disassembly of the machine he was holding. "Funny you should mention 'new help,'" he said. "Don't know exactly where the new help came from, but it looks like this town may need it sooner than we'd hope. The new help seems experienced in dealing with the sort of stuff we janitors have to deal with. At least the principal ought to be happy." He reached down and took another tool out of a desk drawer. "Speak of the devil…"

A second after Smith said that, the elementary school vice-principal walked into this place. He was a balding sort of man with a slight pot-belly covered over with his buttoned blue shirt: his leather belt holding up his beige slacks. He looked at Selena before saying anything…stared at her. It was that before he actually said anything.

_…_

3.

…

In the forest, a soft and ghostly mass of wafting fog drifted its way among the trees: covering the ground as it went around and between the trunks of the trees all around. There were patches of hairy mold on many of these trees: the patches of silky mold that resembled scalps of human hair. These hairy molds became slick with a colored, viscous substance oozed from these patches and from cracks in the rest of the trees. It was a thick, oily substance with a dark color to it.

These trees were _contaminated_. Infected was a word some others would think of upon seeing this: a consideration from the ignorant. Yet infection was a word for viruses and bacteria. This was nothing of that sort. That which contaminated the trees was not anything like that. For what contaminated these trees could not be treated with chemicals recognized by any biologist.

A long-lost nation of people, had they still been alive, would have understood this _contamination_. Yet those people were long gone and lost to any historian's records. Their existence obliterated from time and space. What remained was something else…

The fog, it made the contaminated trees bleed blood. Dark crimson liquid seeped from cracks in the tree trunks as the fog irritated the wounds. A person could almost imagine these tall trees of the forest moaning in pain and agony: trapped in their inner worlds of pain and suffering as the fog irritated the hairy mold that grew on their trunks. If the trees could scream with voices, they would.

_Fwoo-o-sh…_ A lonely shrub among the went up in flames: catching fire for no immediately obvious reason. Then six little men in red coveralls climbed up out of the ground. These men were laughably short: barely four feet in height: but they were seriously strong. Their thick, meaty arms rippled with strength as their chests stretched the fronts of their coveralls. They dug their bare feet into the ground as they lifted their burden: an engine-block set in a thick metal platform. Handles on the sides of the platform provided for grips.

The six little men proceeded to carry this engine block towards an especially large tree: which was already thoroughly covered with the dark hairy mold. As the engine block gave off waves of heat from the severity of the radiation, the side of the tree trunk facing this direction seemed to melt into a pile of blood. This made for an opening into the tree, an opening full of black darkness… It was into this darkness that the six men in red coveralls carried the engine block…

As they walked in, blood from the tree…_seeped into the brown-black of the dirt. It seemed and melted as shrubs above-ground continued to burn with bright flames. Now even the roots were on fire, even underground…_

_…_

_ In another place, the land all around was hard-packed and cracked: the sky above a sheer and starless darkness. A burning bus made for flickering illumination, the incandescent flames roaring out the broken windows and lighting up the nearby ground. The black rubber wheels had been turned incorrectly. Now they were burning just as fiercely as the rest of the bus, burning and melting. Slumped against the sides of this ill-fated vehicle were figures in space-suits: white silvery suits complete with white gloves and bubble-helmets. They were obviously dead, lying still as their shiny plastic helmets reflecting the flames that burned at their backs._

_Animals were walking counter-clockwise around the burning bus. But the term _walking _was to be used loosely. Some of them were on two legs, others on six legs. Some of them merely slid along the ground on hard shiny bellies as they breathed through slits in their ribcages. The animals that managed to walk upright would occasionally make gestures towards the burning bus and the dead figures in space-suits._

_This continued on for some time. The huge bonfire of a bus continued its burning as the wilting rubber of its melting tires continued to sink. And these animals continued their slow counter-clockwise walking around. This burning bus was now theirs. The same was true for the dead figures in the space-suits._

_One of these figures actually twitched. Its left arm jerked, wriggled in spasms as it heard the chanting of the upright animals. Death was a lie. Being killed was a falsehood. This was the place where time did not matter, where nothing was wrong and anything was as right as you wanted it to be._

_Only when the figure in the space-suit realized this truth was it able to get up and walk again. Yes, death is a lie. Death is a lie told to keep the world in order and under control. But that sort of order did not exist here! No, this is somewhere else, and nobody had to be dead if they didn't want to be. Let others believe in the lie of death; there is no such thing other than the falsehood told others!_

_The animals stopped walking and looked on as the figure in the space suit staggered away from the burning bus. Soon enough, the other space-suited figures also stood up and began to follow. Their staggering steps brought them away from the bus. The animals approached the figures and fell on them with slow-moving mouths as if: almost reverently: biting away the material of the suit. This was done by the light of the burning bus, the flames going up toward the blackness of the sky above this desert wasteland: the darkness above being darker than the depths of a universe…_

_…_

_In another place, perhaps another time, Samuel Longhorn was doing something else. He was staring at the top of…_his grand desk.He was sitting at the desk in his study-room as he went over his notes: using the notes to substantiate his written analysis of his most recent findings in the forest. Only, for a moment, he had been…distracted by haphazard thoughts. Such thoughts wandered along lines of _maybe _and _what if _as his eyes looked into the shiny polished woodBetween the information he noted in the woods and the photographs of the girl, a great deal of _what-if _an _maybe_ kinds of thought went through his mind.

___ Fire, indeed,_ he thought to himself. He read from the small field notebook atop his desk, the one with notes from his latest excursion into the forest. Compared to what information he had obtained in earlier weeks, there seemed to be a kind of pattern emerging… The behavior of the _animals _was becoming slightly more sporadic and seemingly more haphazard. Before, they were a great deal more organized about the way they behaved: much as birds build nests from _organized _patterns of woven twigs, or how wolves hunt in packs. On that, Samuel wondered if the comparison could even beginto be correct. The _animals, _they were so incredibly distorted that, maybe, they did not really _have _a pattern of behavior. 

_Just perhaps he could call on a biologist-friend at the nearest university. Yes, perhaps he would. There were only certain kinds of people interested in this kind of biology. And then the biologist would try to come up with a scientific-sounding explanation for the appearances of the particular __animals _of this town. It would also go a ways towards explaining certain species of fauna found in places like the Himalayas and certain bodies of water in Scotland. Perhaps the same could be true for Ireland.

___Hmmph… _As for Celtic connections, Samuel thought about the young woman and the _torc _she had brought with her. The _torc _itself was safely in storage within one of his hardier workshops: one of several workshop-laboratories within this mansion. There, it was stored in a sealed fault lined with brass and lead. The lead was a precaution against possible radiation outbursts, and the brass shielded against the _other _kinds of eminations. He found that he had to take precautions like this in dealing with anomalous objects that appeared in this town.

_Except, this time, the "anomalous object" had appeared with the new girl in his town. There was a manila folder at the far left side of this grand desk containing several typewritten sheets of paper about the girl, as well as a few high-resolution photographs taken of her. It seemed that her Social Identification Number, her real-estate deeds, everything on record, all investigations of her name turned up documentation that perfectly matched those of someone who had disappeared. Beyond that, there was no information about her: about her family, what schools she had attended in her life, or even where she had been born. A call to her place of work revealed that the girl had a "foreign" accent. Even then, there were no immigration records on her. She may as well have been born in another world!_

_He reached over to the manila folder and opened it. He had already read the documents, the scant little information it contained about this girl named "Selena Millieux." There were photographs of her walking along a street in the downtown area. She was an especially pretty girl, even if her clothing was more befitting a school-age troublemaker than such a beauty as herself: dressed in jeans that fit oh-so-nicely, calf-length boots for footwear and a leather jacket that covered a white top. Her dark hair was a contrast to the pale skin of her face. Other photographs managed to get closer images of her face and neck: which was obscured by her shoulder-length hairstyle in other photographs. In looking onto the eyes of the girl, he tried to classify her._

_Staring at her reaffirmed the idea that she was certainly not from Pleasant River…or anywhere else in this world. She certainly looked human enough, beautifully so. Her face and figure would have placed her in any number of fashion adverts or potential spots for movies. (She was probably mistaken for a celebrity of some sort at times.) But her eyes… Even through the photograph, he saw that there was something vaguely odd and…__wrong _about her She was beautiful, exotically so: much deserving of the idea that she was a celebrity. Still, there was _something _in her eyes.

_She's the one. He knew it… No, he __felt _it. He had been waiting for a girl like her to come along. She would be the one to make absolute sense of it all, to solve the riddles. Her coming along was a blessing. The notion made him smile. Now after years of investigation, analysis and study, he could truly begin his plans.

__

…

_4._

_…_

_For the most part, the janitorial staff of the elementary school stayed in the room to tinker with equipment and do some reading. There was little maintenance or cleaning that could be done while school was in session, with children and teachers all occupying the classrooms. Karl was sitting on a stool in a corner next to some equipment, the day's newspaper open. Smith was at his desk and tinkering with a metal electromechanical device roughly the size of an adult's head. The top was off, some kind of technical manual was opened at the side, and he was using small wrenches to make minor adjustments._

_This left Selena to do some investigating of her own. She had opened the metal locker that once belonged to Arnie. Now it was hers, to do what she pleased to it. Why not find out what was within it? So she twisted the thick metal latch and opened the thing. Inside was the most organized mess she had ever remembered seeing. It was just so full of…stuff_

_This locker was actually a series of shelves behind a door: each shelf crammed full of something. And on the locker door itself was a life-sized poster of a young woman in a white gown. The woman was not scantily clad, nor was the gown especially erotic… At least Selena did not think so. The woman in the poster seemed more a comforting figure than an obscenely arousing one: __beautiful_ rather than "sexy."

_The contents of the locker were interesting. On the top shelf of the closet, there were dismembered parts of mutilated machinery: so many parts that they seemed ready to fall out of the closet itself. They were blocks and parts, wires loose and workings exposed. The next shelf below that was a row of thick books about physics and religion: books crammed next to each other. Hmm, an odd combination…_

_However, none of the religious texts were especially and explicitly about her religion. She took out the one that seemed closest to her particular direction of worship and closed the locker as so she could lean against the door. The least she could do was read some of the introductory chapter. Smith said that much of the day would pass slowly, giving plenty of time for leisurely waiting. That is, unless a "kid lost his lunch" or "made a mess."_

_Standing here, she began looking into the text. Now __this _was odd… The introduction of the book claimed that other means of worship were either hypocritical or incorrect. That the worship of this particular deity was the way to "paradise on Earth." It had already been proven, claimed the text, that those to subscribe to this faith and worship according to the noted tenements actually experienced miracles. This was so as other religions could only cite weak and ineffective incidents as "miracles."

_"For goodness' sakes…!" exclaimed Karl, all full annoyance. The outburst was loud enough for Selena to quickly look over in his direction. He was now staring over here. "Oh, you've got to excuse me about that," he said as he folded close the newspaper. "That book you've got? I don't see how anyone can read it without becoming sick and disgusted. The things in there… If Arnie wasn't a janitor, the teachers would've had him __burned alive _for even owning some of that stuff, let alone reading it!"

___"Hell _yeah!" chimed in Smith, still at his desk. He was now putting some parts into the machine being tinkered with. "I don't care _what _people read in their spare time so long as it doesn't cause trouble. But those teachers…! Girl, you wouldn't believe how hot they got when they saw Arnie with one of the books in that closet right there. They were so hot and mad that I could almost _smell _their heads burning up, with steam coming out their ears."

_"So you'd best be careful about where you show those particular books," added Karl. "The teachers can't stand any kind of twisted, wrong-headed ideology that distracts people from reality. They say that those essays are more like drugs than wisdom. At least, that's what they say."_

___Click… _"Gotcha!" cheered Smith at his desk. He had snapped close the hemispherical lid on the machine after having succeeded at doing something. Selena saw him take a small vial of something out of a desk-drawer and carefully pour it into a slit in the metal before he turned knobs on the left and right. "Hmm… Maybe this thing will work again."

_Selena gasped as a headache suddenly __stabbed_ through her head! "Ahh-h-h…" She would have screamed, had she the strength. The sound instead came out as a weak sigh as pain gripped her entire body, filling her head. She carefully…_closed…the book and squinted her eyes, tilting her head to the left. Everything here took on a blurred and…darker look. It was as if the room was being painfully stretched by inches as the box blazed with a dazzlingly white florescence. Not only that, but the pain seemed to penetrate down into her abdomen, further into her._

___Everything had become sick, dark and insane all at once. As the room seemed to grow darker and the blazing device glowed more brightly, she sank to her knees clutched her pain-filled head… What did she have to do to stop the pain! Someone was shouting something in a distorted, high-pitched voice. Soon after, the machine stopped blazing with light… She thought the pain was filling the world. It was filling her world, her body and head seeming to be nothing but suffering! And the pain…faded_…from her body and head.

_She realized that she was now crouching on the floor and nearly sprawled out sideways. The pain must have been so intense that she lost sense of herself, lost herself. "But how is it that…?" she asked aloud. Regaining her composure and picking up the book, she carefully stood again and almost expected the Hellish pain to return._

_Karl was standing over by Smith's desk, the device turned off in Smith's lap as he now sat with chair facing these lockers. Both janitors looked at her with mouths agape and eyes wide open. "Hey, sorry about that. You hear me? I'm __sorry!_" blurted Smith. "This machine was supposed to be a source squelcher. Against mysterious strangers and stuff."

_"Yet in this case," began Selena, "it had nearly squelched __me! _If you are to begin tinkering with hazardous paraphernalia, the very _least _you could have done was make others aware of it. And how is it that one could work around such things without even wearing the correct pendant?"

_"Pendant? What do you mean by that? Anyway… I said I was sorry, okay?" said Smith. "Geez, you make it sound like I've stabbed you in the stomach or something! Truth is, we ain't ever heard of this thing affecting humans before. Nobody ever complained in all the times I've done had to fix it or work on it. Makes me think there's something wrong with you instead of something wrong with the machine."_

_Karl cut in. "Cool it, Smith!" He put his right hand on one of Smith's shoulders. "Maybe that's why she's Arnie's replacement. __Right?_" Something in his tone of voice suggested caution and underlying meanings probably discussed elsewhere.

_The meanings must have meant something to Smith: who now suddenly looked stock-still with respect. "You're right. Now I've really gotta apologize, Selena. It was stupid and foolish on my part to recalibrate this particular device with you in range. I just failed to think that you'd be affected. This machine is safe for normal people, though… Thought you were normal for a while. Hmmph, I guess I was wrong."_

_"What do you mean by that?" asked Selena. The book held in her left hand, she her other hand on her right hip: a pose of challenge as she glared at Smith. "From the very moment I have arrived, I have been confronted with repeated incidents in which people have treated me with a vague air of __derision _and _carelessness. _And how is it that you come to call me _girl? _Only women reserve the right to use such a noun with each other! Granted, my age has not yet touched three decades. Yet I am a _woman, _not a mere child! How is it that you persist in your behavior? Where I came from, _women_ are given the utmost respect!"

_"Hmmph," went Smith. He looked down at the machine in his lap. The janitor's fingers lightly played over the knobs of the machine, then he felt Karl's grip on one of his shoulders. "Respect? Hah! Sounds like worship to me. Look, I apologized, alright? And that's __all _you'll get out of me. Why? Because _this _man's been a janitor for just about as long as you've lived your current life. There have been too many times where people like you have caused the rest of us all kinds of trouble, headaches and nightmares. Before people like you came along, things were peachy. _Peachy_, I tell you!

_"Before people like you came along, we didn't have any problems with wrong-looking __animals _coming out of woodlands to cause us trouble. We didn't have weird people with funny eyes loping around town and talking weird stuff. And we _didn't_ have dark-painted trucks on the road to scare the be-Jesus out of folks! I won't even start to talk about those darned lights in the sky or how we can't even listen to the radio on the way to work some days. You wanna talk respect? You'd best talk about how people like _you _came and brought all this trouble with you! At least Arnie was responsible for what he did…because he wasn't one of your kind."

_"I shall not take responsibility for such claims," said Selena, her voice more calm. She now had the confirmed notion that she was not the only one to make it across to this town. "My appearance is not at all linked to the miscellaneous incidents that afflict the townspeople. You claim me to be a bearer of ill-tidings. Yet I have done no such thing as you believe. Simply because…"_

___Cl-click! _The door opened. In walked a familiar-looking, big chubby man in slacks and buttoned shirt: the vice principal, a worried look on his big face. Smith sometimes wondered why fancy pants were still called _slacks_ when people like him were so darned fat that they made them look more like stockings. Maybe that would make them _tights_? Nah-h-h, that would be something that girls… Sorry. It would be something that _women _wore.

_"It's the bus again!" he said as he walked into the center of this industrial-style office, glancing at the two male janitors before looking at Selena: staring at her. "It showed up at the front entrance before quickly driving away. Some of the teachers and children saw it, but it went away before too many could panic." He looked at Smith. "I thought you had the right kind of equipment to keep that from happening?"_

_"The truth is, we don't," answered Karl, gesturing to the device in Smith's lap. "We do what we can…with what we have. It's not enough. We'll need a bigger janitorial budget and for the police to convince Animal Control to give us more support."_

_"Are you serious?" asked the principal, looking around. "It took __years _to convince the Animal Control people to trust us with what they've given you already. And what they don't give you, it had costs an awful lot to have the university build for you. If we did give you any more equipment, how could I justify it to everyone on my staff? It's bad enough that we're close to having to cut the budget."

_"Why don't you try cutting those huge salaries of yours?" asked Karl. "You, the principal… All the administrators already make six times the money that teachers do: and you're all rich! If you took a pay cut as so you only made twice as much as teachers or even us, then we'd be able to pay for equipment improvements and supplies that would keep things like that from happening all the time. Isn't it bad enough that __animals _are starting to show up during the daytime, when there are lots of children? They haven't attacked a child yet, but they just might one of these days."

_"I'll bring it up at the upcoming Board meeting," said the vice principal to Karl, his eyes lingering on Selena. "But right now, I want you to do your job. Who else is going to keep the school safe? I can't call the police to deal with certain kinds of problems." He finally stopped staring at Selena and turned to look at Karl. "What if I told the police that __you _were causing problems? Since you and the police just _love _to cooperate in dealing with the town's legendary problems, they'll be glad to agree that you need some quiet time in a quiet, isolated place…"

_"I see that you're a popular one, Smith," said Selena, that book she was reading now held behind her slim back. "Very well… Let us see to the maintenance of the grounds." She quickly put the book in the locker and closed it. "Come along, one and all. This will be an exquisite opportunity to present to me what you have in place to act as deterrents."_


	3. Chapter Three!

__

Silent Hill: The Dream Machine

by Elliot Bowers

"Lonesome Town"

lyrics by Baker Knight

vocal by Ricky Nelson

Chapter 3

_By the light of the moon, blurred by fog, the animals of this forest cavorted and danced around something that had fallen out of the sky. These animals had the usual variety of unusual shapes: lumpy skulls, multiple limbs, extra orifices where there ought be none. The animals were so asymmetrical in some cases that they ought not be able to move at all. But oh, how they danced! Despite having wrong-shaped and highly compromised physiologies, their moves would have put even the most gifted human artists to shame. It was a dance powerful enough to appeal to the most original rhythms of time and space, the fabric of reality itself…_

They danced the dance that resonated with the fabric of reality…in order to rip _it. As the animals galloped and swayed, spun and swung, it was not long before another one of their kind: a denier: broke open its flesh-cocoon in the trees. Its muscular body still wet with mucous, it crawled down from the tree using all six of its arms: the hands easily sticking to the moldy bark of the tree-trunks._

Oh-ho! Much was to be done, much indeed. There was a calling to be done this night, a grand continuation of the summoning. The others would be disappointed if it was not done. So it shall be done…

The dance of the animals increased in frenzy as the denier's six hands made contact with the ground. Moving with the same crawling motion, the denier made its way to the machine from the sky. Feh! It was second-hand and shoddy, having been disconnected from other machinery for a long time. However, it would work. Such machines had worked for over sixty thousand years; a mere trip across the void between worlds would not damage its workings in the least. So the denier went to work with its six arms, manipulating the valves on the sides of the machine as the other animals continued to dance….

…

Selena was in the bed, though she did not rest easy. Headache filled her mind, a fever heating her body. So full of pain, she sat up _and…_opened her eyes to see that she was in a metal room: the walls made of hard grayness. There were no lights in this gray room. Yet, she could see everything: as if there was a weak glow of light from above…or below.

As her mind cleared and reasserted itself, it made full sense. The "bed" she now lie on was actually a transition transponder designed with the physical specifications of the same object in the other world. Her fever was caused by the hard radiation filling this room and probably killing her current body. The high level of radiation was also why the room was made the way it was: the floor and walls made of chemically treated, high-density ceramic to prevent the leakage of uncontrolled contamination due to Machine usage.

__

In fact, all the rooms beneath this one also had ceramic floors to regulate energy. There were many thousands of rooms in this place, all of them occupied by the Machinery and the workers that maintained them: workers with bodies created specifically for their tasks in maintaining the Machines. Some were for the Machines, and some were used as _openings _to other places. And it was the Flesh Lords who kept things in order, the Deniers their immediate subservient. Things were maintained this way even after these thousands years… Hundreds of thousands of years…

__

This body still pained her. It was a body more suited to the world she was visiting, a world fresh and relatively untouched. It was such a weak world, one where people believed that time could be measured, that life could be calculated, where reality is what it is: and anything that deviated from their ideals was ignored.

In that the people there were so weak and kept close-minded, it was a world fresh for the taking: in fact, being taken over. To exist in such a world, she had to take on this pathetic, too-slender and pathetically pale-colored body. Such a flimsy slip of a body, it was. It needed to be fed and filled with water, a body that needed cleaning and care… It was a body so weak that she could feel it dying as she stand in it!

No matter, more bodies could be made here. What mattered was that _she _was here. She raised her left hand to her numb neck to be sure that her red _torc _was in place. This _torc, _it was a red circle of metal around her neck, a symbol of her status here as much as there was any. Let the Enemy continue its path, its evil path of Yellow: the lost color of a forgotten star. Only those of Red know the true path.

There was something she had to do. What it was, she could not say. Selena simply felt that something had to be done. She knew this just as ants _knew_ that they had to chew open new tunnels at times or crawl out to seek things to kill and eat. So she stepped out of this particular gray room and into the hall.

…

Out here in the hall, incandescent light-bulbs glowed from within rusty metal light-fixtures: hanging down from a ceiling of burnt rusty metal grating: with spaces covered over by wire-mesh. Pipes and rust-stained wires were visible through the grating, with some of the pipes leaking blood. Her arrival had put an extreme strain on some of the electromechanical workings of already-stressed capacitors, so some liquid leakage was expected. But the pipes of the Machines would not suffer for long; the pipes would heal themselves.

__

She walked farther along the hall, her high-heeled boots clomping along the metal floor. "_Aaugh!_" came a man's scream echoing along the walls. The tinny quality of the sound meant that it was coming from a speaker. "_Get down in the shelter! Down in the shelter!_" Selena looked around, turning her head to try and look for any visible sources of that sound.

"_The jerks! They've already roasted the surface with those damned black smoke-bombs! The world's done! The oceans are turning to the color of blood! Everybody's changing now. Isn't it enough…? What was… Aiaia-a-agh!_"

__

Bwo-o-o-mm…! The man's voice was cut off as a deep bass-sound of explosion seemed to shake and rumble. It was just sound, not an actual explosion. That was followed by the sound of hissing radio static-noise. Whatever happened to the man in that other world, it shut him up.

Where the _Hell _could such pandemonium come from? Selena eventually came to a door that looked pretty much like all the other doors: rusted metal and painted black. She gently put her left ear to the door: hearing the sound of the radio static. This was certainly the source of the grotesque sounds. She could complete her tasks later. At this time, this distraction had taken her attention. The door opened on mucous-lubricated hinges and she went in.

…

__

In here, this was another gray room: a room with ceramic walls. Except this room had been converted to Machine-use. Dominating the center of this space was a large engine-Machine with a mutilated animal wired to the top. The animal's legs and lower torso had been sawed off to facilitate its integration with Machinery: wires and metal pipes connecting the animal's belly and chest to the engine itself. And the animal's arms were lashed with barbed wire to prevent it from doing anything so foolish as trying to disconnect itself from the machine, or to tear out the speaker that was installed in its open mouth. It was that speaker from which was coming the sounds.

"_It's the end…! Oh God, not like this!_"came the voice from the speaker. "_Oh God! Oh God… The ceiling is falling apart. This shelter's…_" _Bwoom! _"_It's the end! Here…we…go!" _Then came the sound of crashing and chaos. "_It burns! It bu-u-u-urns…! The end of the world! It bu-u-urns…! Gyach…_" The sounds were coming from the radio speaker in the animal's belly, sounds from another place and time. As for the animal itself, its little head just smiled. It jerked its head to the side.

__

Click! As easily as that, the animal changed the frequency. There were no more sounds of shaking or quivering, no more screams of pain from that long-lost man in a world being taken over. Instead, there was just the sound of someone in another place, another time, singing a cowboy song:

__

Oo-oo-o-ooh, o-o-ooh… Oo-o-o-ooh, oo-ooh!

_There's a place…where lovers go-o-o,_

To cry their troubles away!

And they call it…Lonesome Town,

__

Where the broken hearts stay!

…_Lo-o-o-nesome To-o-own!_

You can buy a dream, or two…

To last you a-a-all thruogh the years.

And the only pri-i-ice you pay,

Is a heart full of tears.

…_Full of tears!_

Selena staggered away from the converted-animal radio, tears in her eyes. The animal looked at her with twinkling eyes. Was it not for the speaker embedded in its mouth, it would probably had smiled. Now the animal smiled and stared as if it knew everything about her. Oh yes, the animal knew _everything _about her. And the song continued to play from the speaker in the animal's mouth:

__

Goin' down…to Lonesome Town!

Where the broken hearts stay!

Goin' down…to L-o-o-nesome Town!

To cry my troubles away!

_In the to-o-o-own of broken dreams,_

The streets are filled with regret!

Maybe down in Lo-o-nesome Town,

I can learn to forget.

_To forget_… Suddenly, Selena felt herself became extremely angry. "How _dare _you present me with such a horrid song!" she shouted, her voice becoming rough. "When I come into full power and control of the Machines, you shall pay dearly. _Sixty_ teracycles of pain for you when I do! Then you shall see that my purpose is strong!"

The machine-animal just grinned at her, the head atop its mutilated body just looking amused. The gleam in the little beady eyes were glints of amusement. If the animal's lungs had not been torn out to make way for wiring, it probably would have been laughing out loud at her. As it was, Selena could hear the laughter in its thoughts.

This only served to make her even _more _angry. Here it was, this lowly servant that was currently less than nothing. And it saw her as a thing of derision! _Hah-hah-hah… _She had the impression of a man laughing himself silly. These were only thoughts, but they had all the power of actual speech. The machine-animal probably would have made obscene gestures at her had its limbs not been severed: any number of obscene gestures from any culture.

Selena felt anger filling her mind with a red-colored rage, that beginning to heat her body. Her hands clenched into hard and pale fists as she thought of the worst things that could be done to this hollowed-out creature with the radio in its belly. She thought of tearing out the embedded Machinery and watching the creature bleed the very same blood being pumped into it through the pipes connected to the ceiling.

It was these pipes that began to quiver. There was the sound of machinery in the rooms below beginning to churn up with extra energy in response to Selena's anger. This room became warmer as heat and extra radiation bled into this almost-dark room. Pounding sounds began to echo along the floor as the metal walls began to vibrate. Oh _yes,_ this was how it was done. She would see to it that this blasphemous soul learned to respect _her!_

Blood gushed through cracks in the metal wall at the left, blood which soon caught fire from the sheer intensity of the radiation leaking up through the floor. The floor itself was actually beginning to glow with a reddish color of its own. Selena had the vague idea that her skin was beginning to redden from the immediate exposure, and the insides of this body were beginning to bleed. Her body was dying in this sudden increased flood of beta rays, gamma radiation, and even other kinds of radiation not known to humanity.

As for the animal that dared to defy Selena, it had none of the immunities or strengths that Selena had. It was more tightly bound to its body than Selena was: even more so as it was bound to a Machine. The animal was not far from being made part of the Machines themselves, which it probably would be after this punishment has been properly completed.

The animal opened its mouth in a silent scream of pain as its hollowed-open body was overcome with blood-colored fire: the fire coming from the pipes built into its body. The effect was much like that of watching what some humans called a _bar-be-cue_. Except that the meat was still what humans would call "alive." Well, nothing was actually _alive _in this place. Nothing was _dead_ either, for there was no such thing as the peace of death in this place. Only the Others believed in the peace of death.

When the burning was done, there was just a rusty metal scaffolding when the animal once was atop the machine: a rusty metal scaffolding supporting a ribcage and blackened, barbecued head atop it, a burnt speaker within the jaw. The pipes leaked blood into the framework where there had once been the animal's flesh: the blood leaking onto the simple wires and transistors that served for a radio. The radio, once tuned into the world of that doomed man, now played hissing static.

Three massive, bloated figures dropped down from the dark ceiling: their gigantic heads nearly as large as their bodies. Their heads were large as they had to hold massive mouths. These animals were called gub-shufflers: animals with the purpose of eating metal. When their bodies were full, these gub- shufflers would jump into Machinery and be ground to pieces: recycling both the metal they had eaten and themselves.

They were here to eat used metal, and they would do so now. Using grubby and calloused hands, the gub-shufflers began to pluck away pieces of the metal framework…and put them in their gigantic chomping mouths. This was followed by sounds of metal being chomped and crunched. They didn't mind that there was still some burnt meat on the metal at all; it added to the flavor.

Perhaps in the space of several hundred human years from now, the _animal _that was the radio would emerge from the Machinery in a new body. Perhaps this time, it would know better than to ridicule Selena!

As for Selena's own body, it had "died" as she watched the gub-shufflers eat the _animal_. Only her strength and superior abilities allowed her to keep the body standing. It would have been simple to allow the body to lie down when she left it to get another . But that would leave the _torc_ around the neck.

She would have this body rejuvenated, then. A visit to another room or a return visit to that fresh new world would rejuvenate it. Hmm, yes… After her tasks here were completed, she would return to prospects in _that _world. As the gub-shufflers continued to eat the burned machinery, she left this room…

…

"…_Igh!_" Selena's hands went to her own neck as she suddenly sat up in bed: in her own bedroom. She was in bed… It was an actual bed, in _her _bedroom: not the other place. Throwing off the bed-covers, she turned on the bed-side lamp and walked over to the full-length mirror: one that resembled the mirror she had elsewhere. Never mind that she was naked. It was all the more convenient for an inspection of herself.

She looked at herself in the mirror, all of herself: face, neck and body. All over, her skin showed no signs of corruption: her body was still the smooth color of milk. Her right hand to her abdomen, she felt no reddening or feeling of burning sickness inside. So her body was still alive, of course: though her throat was still somewhat sensitive to touching.

_Silly girl, _she thought to herself. _Foolish of me, thinking such morbid thoughts. _Chiding herself, she walked back to bed on her bare feet, the chill air on her bare body as she turned off the bedside lamp and covered her body with the bedcovers. She was, however, unable to take back to sleeping…

…

The golden color of the morning sun brightened the land, coming through the windows. Selena awakened and walked to the bathroom. The morning sun was irritating enough to goad her out of bed. It also reminded her still sleep-heavy mind that it was again time to live the day.

It took an hour to be ready. Freshly showered and dressed in another working outfit: jeans, blue-buttoned shirt and sensible shoes on her feet: she locked the house door behind her before leaving. Outside, it was full-morning on this residential street. She stepped down the porch steps and crossed the short lawn in getting over to the car. Getting over to the school was important to her now. The other janitors _knew _things about her and about what existed in this town.

Selena opened the car door and sat in, closed the door and turned put the key in the ignition.. When she turned the ignition, the car engine and radio both came on. What was this? She didn't remember leaving the radio turned on… In fact, she much preferred to drive without the car radio on; radio reception in this town was atrocious half the day: only working during the afternoon when the nightly fog was evaporated away by sunlight.

The radio continued to hiss and occasionally sputter out sounds interspacing the static as she prepared to drive. She checked the rear-view mirror, checked the gauges and generally made sure this car was good for the drive. It was.

And the car radio's reception seemed to improve when she began to drive the car down this street, as sunlight continued to brighten. "…_Are reminded to avoid them.." His-s-s… "Contact the police. Do not attempt…" Sh-h-h-ht! Hisss-s-s… _"_Contact Animal Control directly, because animal remains are carriers of a thus-far unidentified disease. The Animal Control department will…" Bzzt! "Should be draped in gold ornaments such as jewelry or watches. Any small amount of gold will help. If no gold is present, then potential victims…" Hsst! "…Items of brass or other similarly toned metal. In other news…"_

She was not even paying particularly close attention to the radio as the news man continued to try and talk its way through the static and interference. Rather, the radio was more like a passive voice to keep her company. Selena was lonely. What she needed were friends and other people to be with. All that she had done in this town for the past few days: besides reading religious texts obtained from work: was go shopping and start working at Arnie's job.

Eventually, the radio became free enough of static that the newsman's voice was soon more audible. "_There was little evidence of miscellaneous activity at the location despite witness reports. Witnesses reported seeing bright lights and children within the vicinity of the field at the time of the incident itself. This had led police to believing that local high-school children were engaged in illicit after-hours activity._

"_However, the police report that little was found at the scene itself. The Pleasant River Police Department claims to have only found broken parts of manufacturing machinery and empty ceramic bowls: both of which being of unknown manufacture. All such objects were sent to the appropriate department for further analysis. Teenagers are advised to avoid suspicious holes in the ground and to remain indoors after daylight hours as there is the hazard of encountering infected wildlife._"

__

The radio continued its chatter as Selena continued to drive, thinking about what else to do in this town. Just perhaps she should begin to seek out Arnie's friends and take them on as her own. After all, it was appropriate for her to take into as many aspects of Arnie's life long enough to make closure of them. She was still here during a transition kind of time: still working out the rough parts of her new life.

…

2.

…

She arrived at the school an hour before the school busses would come here. Smith and Karl, those janitors in blue jeans and buttoned work-shirts, feet protected with work-shoes, were already walking the grounds of the school. Smith was pushing a rubber-wheeled cart full of repair equipment, while Karl would occasionally crouched down to check the brassy devices half-embedded in the grassy ground. These devices repelled the kind of trouble found in the woods.

"Good morning to you both," said Selena as she approached. "I see that the day's miscellaneous-related activities have…begun." A sudden headache caused her speaking to stumble: a sudden knifing headache thrust into her head. It, the pain, was low enough for her to tolerate.

"Good morning to you, too," said Smith. "Hey girl, anybody ever tell you that you talk kinda funny? Nobody's gonna mistake you for being a local, that's for sure!" He began pushing the wheeled cart as Karl began walking towards the next machine in the ground. "Yeah, we're just checking these resonators to make sure that _animals _don't show up today. The police drive by here every night, making sure things are okay." He put on an angry look. "Would ya believe they said they saw one of those mysterious strangers walking around here? And I just _fixed _one of the messed-up resonators yesterday! You saw me!"

"If that was so, then none of them should have been able to come close to the school," added Karl, kneeling by one of the brassy machines embedded in the ground. "The Animal Control department is good for giving us equipment to keep problems away from the school. But the equipment they give us requires a lot of attention…" After checking something on the top of the machine in the ground, he stood up again. "I get the idea that they're deliberately not giving us the best equipment they have or something. Probably because they don't trust us with it."

As they kept walking along, with Karl checking the next set of equipment over, Selena felt the headache fade…then come back again. She chose to stand about six meters or so away from the embedded device that Karl and Smith were inspecting. It was much like the headache that occurred yesterday when Smith had flicked on the resonator. _Safe for normal people_, Smith had said yesterday. Selena insisted that she was as much a "normal" person as anyone else. So what if she came from somewhere else?

The fact that she was affected by the janitorial equipment, that was the _only _sign of something having been wrong with her. She thought back to the day when she left her old town, the fear and worry about being _changed._ Yes, her eyes had changed color. It was a symptom of having been infected: changes in parts of the body, a lack of hunger… Infected, not _contaminated. _If she had been _contaminated, _which was a great deal worse, she would not have been here: walking around in full daylight and able to dressing in normal clothesand talk to people.

Karl glanced over at Selena before resuming his maintenance. He had done so with a slight look of concern. When Smith looked back at her, he winked at her. It was as if he was thinking, _Don't you worry, cutie! I know all about you_. In that he knew the resonators affected her the same way it affected certain things, it was as if Smith knew _other_ things about Selena: secret things. She could not have felt any more violated if Smith had walking into her bedroom at night and ruffled through her drawers of underclothes, or checking what kinds of feminine products she used. So she was affected by machines? It was because she was still different, not fully adjusted to here.

As the other two janitors continued their work, Selena followed close behind. She was far enough away not to be too intensely affected by the devices, but she was close enough to at least put up the appearance of supervising. She _was _an authority over them: in charge of them. It was her responsibility to point out any faults or mistakes they have made. For example, they had assumed that _animals _only traveled by air or over-ground. _Over_ ground. But what about…

"Karl, wait a moment!" exclaimed Selena. She excitedly strode closer to where the other two janitors were working…coming just close enough that the headache was barely tolerable: enough to bring a frown to her face. "It is true that the resonators are, in fact, functioning. Yet also true is how _animals _have been able to appear close to the school…or come from within the school! Despite the placement of devices, the _animals _are still able to penetrate the sanctity of the school's security."

"Come on, what's your point, girl?" asked Smith, getting annoyed. "Look, you're new here. You just got the job. I know how you're probably excited and all. But you still gotta learn about what we do. So just hang back and watch us at work! We'll talk about stuff later."

"No, you _shall _hear me out!" insisted Selena, her irritation prodded by the headache. "Up until this point, there was an emphasis on barring infiltration from the surrounding area. This constitutes a wall of deterrence. Walls are excellent for keeping out things large and obvious from the most obvious of entrances. Yet what of _other _ways of infiltration?"

"Why don't you talk normal?" asked Smith, still annoyed. "Your accent is thick as frozen tree sap in the dead of winter! Hell, I don't know… Maybe they don't have winter where you came from and you don't understand what I'm saying! Probably don't understand half the words coming out my mouth!"

As Smith ranted, Karl stood up from the embedded device he was inspecting. He crossed his arms and shook his head. "Maybe its you who doesn't see all there is to see. Or understand."

"What! You too? Don't tell me you're siding with strange foreign-girl here! Talk, Karl. Go right ahead and make yourself look crazier than you are."

"Selena's talking about _other _ways into the school," explained Karl. "A cousin of mine had a gopher problem, you see. Damn things kept digging holes in her back and front yards: made someone trip and break their right wrist. Would you believe my cousin had a fence going all around her property? A _fence, _Smith. Get it? Fences don't always work, _especially against burrowing pests._"

"What the…?" began Smith. Then came a look of shock and amazement as realization struck. One could almost imagine a very bright light bulb lighting up over his head. "Oh_, doodley-fuddle!" _he yelled. "How the _flop-doodle _could I have been so _bone-headed _to not see that? Can't keep underground vermin out with just fences!"

"_Janitors!_" came a shout in the distance. The vice principal came running out of the school, his flabby gut and butt flopping in his buttoned shirt and overly large pants: tie flapping and sweat stains under his armpits. He came running over to here. "You all! Hey…!" he yelled in coming. Everyone turned to look. When he finally arrived, he was out of breath and looking set to fall over. He bent over, exhausted, breathing heavily and gasping for air. "Somebody's in…there… It's a mysterious… One of…those… Those…" He sucked in a deep breath. "A _mysterious stranger!_" he finally screamed.

Karl snapped the fingers of his right hand. "You're right on the money, Selena!" he said. Then to the principal, "Where was the mysterious stranger? It was around the bathrooms, right? Or maybe…it was staying close to some of the air vents in a ceiling…"

The principal angrily nodded, cheeks flopping. "Yes… Yes…! Now what…are you going to do about it?" He had recovered enough of his breath to be angry and authoritative. "We can't have people like that just walking around the school and throwing people around like mannequins!"

This led Selena to asking, "You mean to say, without touching them?" The principal just glared at her. "I am aware of such things." She turned to Smith, recalling how he was repairing the inner workings of a piece of equipment. "And I take it that the resonators have independent power supplies?"

"Batteries will last 'bout sixty thousand years…unless there's a nuclear war!" confirmed Smith. "Even then, they'd last even longer. This kind of machinery loves high levels of radiation, seems." Before becoming a janitor, Smith himself wouldn't have believed that any kind of machinery could last that long. Then again, before becoming a janitor in this town, he wouldn't have believed in the sort of things kids imagined that lived under their beds or inside closets. Difference was, those sorts of things didn't just come from closets.

…

They began by wheeling the cart into the elementary school front entrance: now-darkened halls going to the left and right. Atop this push-cart were three cube-shaped resonators: the dirt still on their sides from having been dug from the soil outside. These devices were cold and silent for now. But when it came time, they would vibrate with energy enough to repel troubles and dark tidings.

The three made it into the front lobby-area without incident and saw windowed administrative office across the way. Inside there, behind the glass, the two secretaries were sitting back to back: the chubby one and the skeletally skinny one. Those two were chatting and looking over school documents. Perhaps not even the end of the world could not deter them from their daily routines. And the way the light from in that windowed office glowed out into this darkened hall, it was like looking into another world: a world that remained calm, bright and sane.

"Damn, since when did it get so cold?" asked Smith out here. He rubbed his hands together. "Nah, stupid question. We know why. Just like we know why the lights look like they're being sucked for electricity."

_You! _Selena quickly turned to the right, quickly looking around. As she did so, looking for the source of the voice, the lights overhead flickered…before going dim again. Karl stopped pushing the cart to look back at her. "I had been heeded," she explained, crossing her arms across her midsection. "And now… A sickly ache has taken hold. A fever as well…"

Smith saw that Selena's face was moist with perspiration, her skin looking even more pale than usual. She seemed to be seconds from collapsing. "Hey girl, maybe you oughtta go sit down. Do something," said Smith. "How can you be hot at a time like this? I'm _freezing. _I got on thermal long-johns underneath this and it _still _feels cold in here You must be getting sick. And this _can't_ be the right time for that!"

She closed her eyes and raised her right hand in a gesture that meant, _Stop. _"A moment please. A bit of pause is all I require." A few deep breaths, and she opened her eyes again. "I am able to continue this particular venture. This task shall be culminated regardless of my level of discomfort as I _shall not swoon!_ So let us move on… _That_ way." She pointed to the left hallway.

"Yeah, may as well," said Karl. "When we find the troublemakers, I'm going to turn on the resonators. Okay, Selena? These devices all switched to operate in sync with each other, so when they do…" He saw Selena nod. She knew what would happen if she was within range: pain for the trespasser and pain for her.

_Clop, clop… Clop-clop-clop-clop… _There was the sound of bony hooves in the hall to the left. A look over there gave a view of something, a vague sort of _something _looking in this direction. Selena angrily reached towards one of the resonators on the cart and flicked it on: and staggered back when the headache immediately followed: everything suddenly covered over with a dazzling pain! She was not able to see what was happening for the space of a few pain-filled seconds.

_"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…!" _laughed the _animal_, traipsing and prancing about as if in mockery even as the resonator made its body tremble. It then turned and clopped its way down the hall and going around a corner.

Then Selena recovered when Karl had switched off the machine. Smith spoke up. "You missed it! That thing was dancing… I've seen _animals _do a lot of things, but I've never seen one of _them _do a tap-dance routine! Maybe they've got brains after all."

"It remains here, though unseen," said Selena with dead certainty. She could hear whispered thoughts within her mind. The other two couldn't hear it, but she could. "The mysterious stranger has minions in thrall." She walked towards the front of the cart and tugged at it. "I shall guide forth."

As Karl pushed, Selena controlled the direction of this cart. They continued to make their way into the semi-darkness of the hall. There were open classroom doors to the left and right, each open door an opening into a potential hiding place. The florescent lights overhead were on, yet they were just very dim. "Yes, this is certainly the way," she said. "We are coming closer." She could hear the _animal _mocking her as they came closer. This was a hallway.

"_Ha-h-h-h…!_" came the victorious braying laugh from the _animal _as it leapt out from an open door to block the way forward. Smith was generally correct about the _animal _resembling a deer. It had four graceful legs and a lean body. Except, at least a dozen horns were sprouted from where its neck was supposed to have been. "_Hah-h-h!_" it cheered again, doing that mocking dance on its hooves as it waved its horns about threateningly. It soon became apparent that the laughter was not coming from where the neck-stump sprouted horns: but from the mouths that lined both sides of its ribcage: The _animal _was laughing in stereo.

"Damned freak of nature!" shouted Smith. He walked forward with fists clenched. "No stupid mutant hunter's trophy is gonna scare _me _off! I don't got a rifle now, but I'll be damned if…" _Ha-ha-ha! _He raised both arms up, trying to protect himself as the animal reared up on its hind legs and raised its horns in the air.

Selena was again quick to act. Suddenly, she had flicked on all three resonators before staggering back herself. This was…_like being struck with a wave of electrified ocean-water_… _But despite the onrush of pain,_ _her head bowed, she quickly snapped on the other two resonators and began to stagger away: swaying and gasping for air. Now, in addition to the waves of pain, it was as if the entire hallway was full of white light and noise all trying to fill her aching head! Everything just hurt so…much…!_

Flicker! _Flick-flicker…_ The _animal _collapsed to the ground in a quivering heap of muscle and shaking legs. The resonators continued to resound with a bone-shaking sound as the _animal _continued to shake itself apart. Before long, the _animal _had shaken itself until it was no longer coherent: a blurry mass that vaguely resembled something alive. Then even that faded away.

Smith turned off the machines and listened for other sounds. He stayed by the machine cart while Karl went over to the entrance area, where Selena sat huddled against a wall. He saw that the lights over there had returned to normal, giving him a better view of the girl. Her dark hair was in disarray, obscuring her pale face, and her legs were tucked in as she hugged herself.

When Karl tried to put a hand on her right shoulder, she quickly shrugged it off. "_Begone from me!" _She screamed: hands raised in a warding gesture. Then, with weak legs, she stood without assistance and began to tuck lengths of hair behind her ears again. Karl noticed a trickle of blood coming from her nose: two more streaks trailing from her ears and down the sides of her neck. The trails went down to the collar of her blue-buttoned top. She ran a quick finger over her top lip and adjusted her collar. A quick glance at her fingers revealed a dark stain: a result of what had leaked from her nose. It was blood… "The so-called mysterious stranger is waiting for us… Waiting for _me_. Now he has retreated elsewhere within the school," she said. "The _animal _is gone, so the mysterious stranger has less a presence here."

There was the sound of hard-soled shoes rapidly coming down the darkened hall. Selena turned to see a massive figure of a man in red coveralls and red-leather trench coat running this way! This was followed by the flickering light of a bright bluish beam. The gigantic man was so huge that he had to run stooped over to prevent the top of his head from rubbing the ceiling.

But despite his size, the mysterious stranger was deathly afraid of the bluish beam glaring from Smith's modified flashlight. "Gotcha, you pervert!" he shouted in chasing the figure. As the figure ran by, Selena saw large blotches of burned black on the red leather trench coat as he: or it: made a mad dash for the door.

The man vanished before he actually made it to the door itself. "And don't come back!" shouted Smith, waving the modified flashlight. He turned to look in this direction. "Yeah, Karl!" he shouted, the flashlight off. "Looks like I was right about the 'Bridgette' idea, wasn't I? Give those freaks a phony taste of the ol' _flauros_ and they start running like their own god was after 'em!"

"The opposite, actually," said Selena, looking at the odd sort of flashlight that Smith held so proudly. A flashlight? It was not quite that. The blocky front of the thing was the width of a spread hand, but the "flashlight" lens itself was the size of a man's eye. She had an unsettling feeling just looking at it. But whatever she felt, things were probably six hundred times worse for the man who ran from here: having been burned by the flashlight. "Smith?" she asked. "Is that…object quite safe to brandish with such careless bravado?"

"Hell, honey!" exclaimed Smith. "'Careless' was when that joker in the leather trenchcoat thought he could strut on into this school and wait for the kids to show up! Besides, this thing's perfectly safe. It's just your everyday household flashlight… Well, after it's been juiced up with a little something from the Animal Control department." He turned the odd flashlight towards part of the entranceway floor where the trench coat-wearing figure last stood, played the beam over the spot. The glow from the light was certainly 'juiced up,' making for an extra bright spot of illumination. Selena had a headache just from looking at it.

…

3.

…

"I hear and understand." _Hsst! _"I say again, I hear and understand. Over and out," said the policeman in the dark blue uniform, speaking into the radio handset. He then returned the handset to the holder attached to the console as static began to wash out the signal. The officer sitting in the passenger seat: also known as the "shotgun seat": tried re-tuning the radio to another frequency band, gave up. Of course, every police car in this town was equipped with a two-way radio. But the trouble was that the things failed to work half the time because of the town's fog. Last night's fog still hadn't fully evaporated.

He said, "Stupid fog. Stupid radio! Stupid _everything!_ You know, it's times like this when I wish the Animal Control department was just a _little _more cooperative. Just a little bit more. I'm not asking for a lot more, just a tiny bit more. Sometimes, I think that woman sounds more like a robot than a human being. The last time I asked her about giving some of our motor-pool mechanics some of that fancy communications equipment they use, she talked about regulations regarding the 'dissolution of coherence.' What's that supposed to mean? For goodness' sake, they're the _Animal Control _department!Since when do a bunch of _dog catchers_ get equipment fancier than what the Army's got? At least the Army helped us out as much as they could, not like Animal Control. Our radios don't even work half the time. I bet they've got wrist-sized radios that could communicate from here to high heaven: fog or no fog!"

"Yeah well… Animal Control _is _helping us out," said the plain-faced policeman in the driver's seat, his voice tired. "Remember, they've got to follow their regulations just as we've got to follow ours. They're professionals, and they weren't just sent here to chase pets on the loose, either. They've got to do things by their books. That blonde woman of the Animal Control department told me all about it. So that's why there are limits to the kind of stuff they can give us. If they just decided to give us versions of all their most powerful equipment, we could hurt someone or something because we don't know all the ins and outs."

"Wait a second…" began the policeman in the other seat. "If they taught us, don't they think we'd be able to handle it? Town Hall trusts us with pistols, shotguns, tear gas, tasers and harder-than-steel batons. With our special tactics unit, we've got automatic rifles, grenade launchers and even explosives. What does Animal Control have that we couldn't handle without the right training? What? Tell me… Do they have hyper-blaster laser guns from the space-aliens? Flamethrowers with unlimited ammunition? Super chainsaws that never run out of gas?"

"Hmmph… Yeah, they've probably go some things like that…" mused the policeman in the driver's seat as he stared out the front window. The nightly fog was nearly gone, giving a clearer long-distance view of the downtown street: not that there was a great deal to see in the first place. It was a weekday afternoon, and it wasn't the time of year for that flood of tourists to come through. Traffic on the street only consisted of the occasional van or car that went along the street.

That police officer was, in a way, probably right to complain about the way police business was conducted in this town. There were often instances in which what the police of Pleasant River had to do things that went far beyond the standard dictates of small-town policing. Standard procedures were studiously followed and practiced in most all the other nearby townships and such. But around here, standard procedures could only go so far.

_Hs-s-st…! _The police car-radio came on in a hiss of static, followed by a woman's voice. It wasn't _that _woman: It was just the dispatcher. "_Car One-Nine, this is Dispatch. A possible code Red-Ceiling is in progress on Burning Pine Lane. I say again, a code Red Ceiling is in progress. Suspect was said to be six feet tall and appeared dressed in a red-leather trench coat_. _Over_."

__

Almost in a bored way, the police officer in the driver's seat picked up the radio handset and spoke into it. "Dispatch, this is Car One-Nine. We copy on the code 'Red Ceiling.' We now proceed to Burning Pine Lane, over." He looked at the other policeman, who looked slightly frightened…to tell the truth.

"_Copy that. Other units will be alerted as available,_" responded the dispatcher's voice through the radio. "_This is dispatch, over and out._" Then the radio was again washed over with static. Meaning, the dispatcher probably contacted other police officers "as available." With a code _Red-Ceiling_, more officers was usually the better option.

Anyway, it was time for these two police officers to patrol the streets for the kind of trouble identified by the code _Red Ceiling. _Who came up with the code name, what the Hell it had to do with what it meant, the police officer in the shotgun seat didn't know. What mattered was what it meant: "Red Ceiling" was the radio code for a mysterious stranger alert, the kind of strangers accompanied by "foreign" wildlife. The car engine turned on, the transmission put in gear, and this car was on its way.

…

This policeman in the shotgun seat kept looking to the right, looked ahead, then looked right again. This residential street was just several streets away from where the downtown area began: one of the more densely populated neighborhoods with houses close together along gray-paved streets. Of course, the dispatcher _said _to look out for a figure in a red trenchcoat. The dispatcher _also _said that this was a _Red Ceiling _problem. That could mean anything besides a man in a red trench coat. Cases like this, a zombified horse the size of an elephant went galloping full-speed down the street past this car, he should not be surprised.

Why the Hell couldn't it be something ordinary? Why couldn't he be chasing purse-snatchers in Paleville, or locking up drunks in Edgaines Town? He grew up in a city, put up with and survived the sort of things that happened there. He thought that small towns were quaint and comfortable, nice and slow… Sure, this town was slower-paced, and the people were more polite…

It just made things all the more creepy. Why the Hell did he sign himself up for this town's police department, this patrol? Because as soon as he graduated from police academy, this was the first town that said _yes_. Other openings were already filled by other recruits. Now here he was, chasing something that was probably cousin to the boogeyman himself! But he was loyal to his job and wouldn't quit, though times like this that called that loyalty into question.

There was a glimpse of moving darkness between two houses, stepping around the corner to go into a backyard. Ah, screw it. "Hey, stop. The perp just went to our right," he said. _Perp _was shorthand-speech for _perpetrator: _a person perpetrating a crime. "You stay back. If we need backup, you can drive away and call it in. You know how bad the radios can become when one of _them _is around…" _Useless_ was the word: Radios were worthless when _they _were nearby.

He got out of the car, the other officer looking. When they did catch the sneaky jerk, the least they could bust him on was trespassing and intimidating officers of the law…or something like that. This car slowed down, and this policeman opened the door and climbed out. Thinking to himself, _Would a gun work on this freak?_

Bullets worked before…to an extent. So did the sight of a shiny badge. Funny thing was, wearing a badge in plain sight seemed to scare those freaks off in a hurry. If an officer was in plain clothes, not wearing the badge outside the clothes, things were different; the _animals _and such tended to be a little more bold. And if that failed, bullets _worked_. It may take nine bullets, it may take nineteen, but bullets always worked against _them_. It was just that, with problems like this, you could not always be sure. Maybe these would be another case of a police officer disappearing?

Pistol at his side, extra magazines of ammunition on his belt, it wouldn't be that way. He turned fear into willpower as he stepped into the space between the houses. Hell yes, he was afraid. That didn't mean that he wasn't able to do his job. As stray streams of wind _howw-w-wled_ across the opening to the space between the houses, he edged closer to the back yards. He reached for his holster, quickly unsnapped the strap that held the pistol in it, drew his weapon pointed upward: ready…

And _out! _Having hopped out of the alley, he took up a saddle-stance with pistol aimed forward. He quickly aimed left, then quickly right… Left again… Nothing moved other than the wind and himself. To his left and right were two typical, nearly identical back-yards: two square spaces of dark blackish-green grass, two rear patios, and a few trees between them. There was no fence to separate the two yards. These must have been close neighbors.

He did some looking around just to be safe: doing a quick walk-around of the yard on the left, then the one on the right. These were indeed two typical back-yards. The patio of the yard on the left was developing cracks, and some kid left a "Blue Robbie" plush toy outside… Nah, there wasn't anything special back here. _Let's try the other yard._

Again, there was nothing. He did his looking around by taking a route along the perimeter. This yard had a fence next to it, separating it from the one next over. There were no kids' toys around, but there was a large red outdoor grille: a waist-high, gas-powered sort of thing used to barbecue the meat of your choice: beef, pork, horse, dog… Hell, even hard-to-cook sloth-meat would probably brown up quite nicely on that thing. Then he noticed the burned patch of grass.

__

He knelt next to it, getting a better look as what he thought were fingers slipped beneath the ground. Was that…? Nah, it couldn't have been. He reached for the baton on his pistol-belt and used it to prod the patch of burnt grass. The grassy ground was a little soft: but otherwise solid. He couldn't have seen what he thought he did.

It was nothing but exactly that: just a circular patch of burned grass: which was burned black. The grass in this part of the state was typically a blackish-green color to begin with, but this grass was burned to the color of night. Maybe the house owners had knocked some greasy, burning meat onto the grass during a cookout? Yeah, that had to be it. That must have explained the awful smell coming from it, too: which also made him feel a little odd…

This wasn't a crop circle or anything like that. It was just a typical, ordinary patch of burnt grass that so happened to have been burnt into a circular shape. Well, okay… This was an otherwise well-kept back yard: and well-equipped. Except for the patch of burnt grass, there wasn't a darned thing wrong back here. Time to get back to the car. So this policeman stood up, holstered his pistol and began walking back towards the car. They would probably catch the perp if he was in the neighborhood: or they scared him away.

…

4.

…

It became a much more sunny day by the afternoon. There were no birds chirping and trilling this time of year. Yet there would have been such pretty sounds if they had been. It seemed like that sort of day. The weather had even become more comfortable. It made the activities of the janitors somewhat more enjoyable.

After school had been dismissed for the day and they had done a preliminary cleaning of the area, they resumed the other responsibilities of janitorial service. This meant checking various devices inside and outside of the school, making sure that they worked. Karl had his doubts about the machinery given them by the Animal Control department and insisted on double-checking all of them: the ones outside as well as the ones inside. They were more easily able to do so, checking the efficacy of the machinery, because Selena could do so from a distance. She could feel how well they were working.

Because the resonators made her feel just so terribly sick. That was why she had to stay back at least six meters whenever Karl and Smith checked on a device. In addition to just the resonators, there were other devices used to keep trouble away. The outdoor-mounted lighting meant to illuminate the school grounds after dark, they were not ordinary florescent lamps. They were something else, something that even Smith didn't fully understand: though he spent a great deal of time trying to understand the machinery given them by the Animal Control personnel.

They were at the east side of the school when she Smith was atop a step-ladder, Karl holding the bottom when Selena had a whim to turn around. It was the feeling that she had to look for something… The whim became an urge as she walked away towards the shrubs that bordered the nearby stand of trees. She went closer, making the urge grow into a compulsion. There was _something _that she had to find over there.

_Sh-shrish-shrish…! _Something large and heavy ran through the shrubbery and underbrush to get away from here as Selena approached. It startled her for just a moment before she stepped into the shrubbery itself. She picked and tugged aside branches of shrubbery and such until she found whatever it was that made her want to come here.

Whatever it was, she could not have been sure. It was actually more than one thing. There were several hand-sized devices: covered with rust. One of them even had a thick-looking gray glove stuck to them, sticking to the rust. The torn wires meant that these things must have been torn away from a much larger device. And the rust on the casing didn't just seem it was caused by rain. It more resembled dried blood. These would have been considered pieces of junk were it not for how these objects made her feel. No, there was _something_…

She could only pick up one of the fist-sized machine-part and hold it cradle-style in her arms. She wanted to carry the other two and would have if this one wasn't so heavy. The other two hand-sized pieces of machinery lie on the ground, as with the one that had a thick gray glove stuck to its rusty case. This left her standing there for a moment as she thought of what to do next. She did _not _want to leave _any _of the machines out here, not even for a moment. The moment she turned her back, those pieces of equipment could blink out of existence.

"Hey, you okay over there?" asked Karl, walking over. He had walked over from the school's side: was now at the edge of the shrubbery. Smith was down from the ladder over by the school itself. "Wait a second. I'll be there." Then he waded and pushed his way into here in making his way to where Selena stood with the machinery at her feet. "Why're you holding a piece of junk like it's a baby? Or… _Oh_." He picked up the piece of machinery with the thick glove stuck to it: not touching the side with the glove. "Hmmph… I've seen something like this before." Turning towards the shrubs, he shouted for Smith. "Hey, Smith! Come see _this!_"

…

They re-entered the school with what they had found, went through the hall and into the janitorial office. Or at least that what they planned on doing. Smith stumbled just outside the office itself as one ankle tripped over another. _Wham! _"_Damn _that hurt!" he complained, getting to his feet. When he did, he realized that the machine-part was no longer with him. He had lost it.

It wasn't as if the part went skittering down the hall or anything. This was a plain, clean, flat hallway: There were no objects under which the machine part could have fallen under or behind. He looked around, looked again… The object was nowhere to be seen. "Gimme a second. I'll find the thing!" he said aloud to the others.

"Find what?" asked Karl from inside the janitorial office. "The part is already on top of your desk. What're you doing out there? I thought you'd be excited about working on this…" He stepped out into the hall, brushing flakes of rust off of his workshirt sleeves. "Don't tell me you're _finally_ scared of unauthorized experiments with new-found stuff. Years of me warning you, and now it's catching on."

He stepped past Karl and went into the janitorial office: strode boldly over to the three desks side-by-side. "Hmph! I'm not _scared!_" he said. "I'll master any machinery I can get my hands on…"

Now in here, he saw that Selena was standing close to the machinery atop the desk, the blue sleeves of her work-shirt surprisingly free of rust. He wouldn't have minded standing close to _her _under most circumstances, but now he had work to do! "Pardon me, ma'am, but I've got machinery to figure out…" he said, gently pushing her aside.

Frowning, she complied: stepping aside. She could not understand why, but she felt a compelling need to… To what? Why was she so protective of this machinery? It seemed to be the very same kind of machinery that ruined her hometown. Perhaps it was part of its workings, to generate sympathy to those who had lived underneath its power. As Smith took a basic toolkit out of a large desk drawer, the lowest one, Selena put her hands behind her back, resisting the urge to stop him. Whatever he was going to do to the machinery was probably good, better if he was going to destroy them.

Before long, Smith had various devices of his own atop the desk: along with a small notebook already half-full of machine-related notes. He opened up the notebook, looked over the three pieces of machinery and jotted some things down and noted today's date. That done, he took up a battery-like device and applied two of the small electrified clamps to two wires of a small machine: one black wire and one white wire. This promptly filled the room with a thrumming noise. "Hmmph, that's interesting! Got it right on the first try. Guess their technology isn't that far off from ours, huh? Or maybe this _is _ours, and we just don't know it."

Selena shook her head once. "That is doubtful. _They _are not at all like you and I. The workings of their machinery is as foreign as Heaven is to Hell!" she declared. "Still, congratulations on striking upon the right combination, finding the correct alignment of the machine-part."

"Hey, wait a second… Was that a compliment? Thanks…!" said Smith as the buzzing sound reduced in intensity. The sound didn't go away; it was just reduced. Keeping his hands clear of the loose wiring, he rotated this machine-part to set it with the small front facing him: the side with the three black buttons and a thick plastic-looking knob. "This thing's labeled! Can't read the lettering… It sure as Hell doesn't say, _'Made in China.'_ Looks Greek or something…"

Selena bent over to look more closely. "It's not at all that kind of language. It says, 'Reverse Truncator, Red Shift Manipulation." Karl looked at her, and she stood up straight. "It's written the Old Way. Did not everyone in your childhood have to learn of it?"

"What do you mean, 'Old Way?' Like Hebrew or somethin'? The only other way we learned to write and read was in script!" said Smith aloud. He eyed the three black buttons and the knob, knobs on a device with these strangely written words. "Heh, wonder what would happen if I…" He took hold of the knob and turned it one _click _to the right. This made the _buzzing _noise in this room heighten in intensity, filling his ears and head with the sound of vibration. It didn't feel bad. Didn't feel good either, but it was just a little disturbing. He began to note this down in his small notebook.

As he had done so, Selena had slowly sat down at the janitorial desk next to this one. He took a look at her to see if anything was wrong. Something seems to have been since he had turned the knob. A red flush of color had spread up her neck and across her cheeks. Her skin was so pale and lacking in color that it must have been too easy for her to blush. She sighed, stared at the machine-part then cleared her throat. "Ahem… Do _not _adjust that part of the device any farther to the right. It is…disturbing."

"Hey, why not?" asked Smith, a goofy grin on his face. He had seen that sort of flush on a woman's face before. "This can't be _bothering _your or anything, _right?_ What if I…?" He saw an angry frown come to her blushing face as her right arm come up halfway, as if she was getting ready to slaphim. "Okay, okay! I won't. Geez… The knob is making me feel a little sick, too. So I'll just turn it the _other _way…" He tightened his grip on the rusty device and turned the knob back one _click _to the left.

Selena felt the warm flush leaving her body. Now she felt…_dirty. _Whatever negative effect that machine had on the other two men, it had an extremely positive effect on her: obscenely so. When Smith asked for a reason why not to turn the knob any farther to the right, the word _pervert _came to mind. Smith was not at all a gentleman mindful of the ladies. Perhaps, at a later time, she would have to find a way at retribution for his attitude. In time, she would. In time…

"I'm am _now turning the knob to the left_," he announced. "Just so you know, Selena. I must've offended you some when I turned it the other way without telling ahead of time, so now I'm going to turn it the other way just so you know ahead of time." He did so, the knob moving with a heavy _click_. _Cl-cl-click-click-cl-click…! _He yanked his hands away in surprise as a painful noise filled the room. 

This made for _an intense racket of hissing radio static and rapid fire clicking sounds coming from one of the tools Smith had set atop his desk earlier. That would be the Geiger counter! The_ _lights flick-flick…flickered and there was the sound of wind blowing through this industrial-style room. "Who-o-o-o…!"_ _came the long, cold yell. Pounding and beating sounds came from the walls and the ceiling, trying their damned best to get in. From where, it was hard to tell. And the Geiger counter was ticking so rapidly, so loudly that it seemed almost angry enough to explode._

_Smith and Karl were stock still with confusion. Annoyed, Selena made a grab for the machine and…_clicked_…_the knob of the machine back to the center position. The clicking from the Geiger counter went away, going from the loud noise to a more gentle click-click-clicking sound…before finally fading away.

"Good move!" said Karl, coming back towards the desks. "That's probably third time you saved us today." He had moved back a few feet when the noise had begun. He eyed the Geiger counter and saw that the indicator needle on the device was now far away from the red again. "Smith adjusted that thing as so it only makes noise when radiation is above a certain threshold: way above normal for this area. Another few seconds of exposure at that level…"

"…And Karl and I would've had our hair fall out, our insides rot, and get more kinds of cancer than you could shake a radium stick at!" finished Smith. "Wow! Yeah, I said it before. I'll say it again. Girl, you pulled our bacon out the fire there!" He looked at the rusty metal machine-part and the other two machine-parts atop the desk. "They're dangerous, I _really _wanna keep my hands on these things… But they're _wa-a-a-ay _over my head. Whoever or whatever had these things before, they must've been pretty damned dangerous temselves."

"_They want_…" began Selena in a half-whisper. She was looking at the wall opposite these desks. She shakily pointed over there. The other two looked over there and saw the marks. Thick lumpy shapes now stood out from the wall in bas-relief: as if people on the inside of the wall were trying to push their way through.. The word _people _was used loosely as some of those pressing hand-shapes had three fingers apiece instead of the normal five. These were mixed in with the convex shapes of cloven hoof-marks. Had the machine-part been active for moments longer, radiation exposure would have been but one of their problems.


	4. Chapter Four

Silent Hill: The Dream Machine

by Elliot Bowers

…

Chapter 4

…

It was the weekend, and there were plenty of people here in the downtown area: here to relax themselves through a good time. People walked along sidewalks in going to restaurants and local shops while cars went along the streets. One such downtown restaurant was set along a street primarily occupied by garment shops, a corner restaurant with a large window to give a view of the outside.

In here, the setup and ambiance was much like most other New England-style eating places: old-fashioned light fixtures above illuminated the wooden furniture, tables and chairs, with wood-paneled walls. Casually dressed people were sitting at tables, talking to each other, considering the cloudy weather, and thinking about what to do with the rest of their time off.

"…All we found to go on were a few broken clay flutes, some dried packets of cinnamon and a mannequin," finished the off-duty policewoman, sitting at the drinking bar of this restaurant. "Of all things… A _mannequin!_ We thought it was the work of a psychopath. But psychopaths usually _kill _people. It wasn't a murder case, we knew. The people who went missing were just…_missing. _There were no other clues we could see."

The woman telling the tale to the bartender, she was pretty by some standards: a slim body dressed in the local style of boots, blue jeans, and sleeveless white shirt with black jacket thrown over. Her shoulder-length red hair framed a face of high cheekbones and crystal blue eyes. The jacket she wore was more than just a fashion statement and a means to ward off the chill of the habitual fogs; it also served to veil her holstered, snub-nosed .38 caliber pistol. Off-duty or not, a police officer always carried a pistol in this town.

"Funny you should mention something like clay flutes. Hold on a second," responded the professionally dressed bartender: a huge man perhaps as broad as he was tall, his head shiny and bald. He was now using those massive arms of his to skillfully pour some sunset-colored beer from a tap. It was this drink that he set before another customer: a man in black jeans and tee shirt. That man's girlfriend was hanging on his right arm and giggling about something silly she'd just heard. "That's a song of dark confusion. It also sounds an awful lot like what some detective came here talking about.

"It was a private eye… Middle-aged sort of guy in typical detective clothes, beak nose and an '80s sort of hairstyle. He said he specialized in 'missing persons' cases. It seems like he had a case as whacked-out as yours: clues that would freak out anybody. One was a tan-colored bowl stained with bits of oatmeal. The other clue was a blurry picture of a roadsign… But the letters on the roadsign in the picture, they were all blurry, like they'd been stretched out of shape. Everything _else _in the picture was in focus except for that . If you ask me, those are some funny thing to leave in somebody's bedroom if you're going to do a kidnapping. At least they _left _cluesPoor kid… The detective also showed me a picture of the kidnap victim: a little girl with really white hair and the biggest dark eyes you've ever seen."

"You said 'three' clues. Hmm…" asked the woman. She frowned. "A little girl… I really hope they didn't _hurt _her or anything. There are too many perverts around these days. The official word for people like that is 'molesters,' child predators, but I call them _monsters_. And the only way to stop a monster is to catch it. " _And kill it._

The bartender shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah well, I hope so too. I told the detective what I could tell him as best as I could. Told him that the road sign looked familiar. But the little pale-haired girl in the spring-time dress… Never saw her before." He grimaced. "If I did, I'd never forget it."

"What do you mean by that?" asked the woman, noticing the uncomfortable look on his face. "I've got twin nieces, my brother's daughters. They're both cute as dolls. Kids are cute…so long as they're not yours… And what do you mean, wouldn't forget seeing her? Any birthmarks or deformities?"

"No, not anything like that. Not that I could see in that detective's picture," responded the bartender. Then that male customer in black outfit gestured for a refill. The bartender reached over to oblige. As he refilled the mug, he said, "It was…" He almost overfilled the other customer's mug this time. "It was the way she looked. Her skin looked _really_ pale in the picture. I mean, her skin was so white that it looked almost fake. Her hair was something like that, too: ash-blonde, they call it. But her eyes. Even in the light of the flash, they were pitch-black. Big dark eyes that look like they swallow light… She looked a little like she was from another planet or something."

"Hmm! _Ha-ha-ha…!_" The policewoman gave a quick laugh, then slapped a hand over her own mouth for a moment. Uncovering her mouth, she apologized. "I'm sorry…. It's funny you should say that. It reminds me of what some in my department have been saying about Animal Control." She took a sip from her drink and stared down at it. Then expression on her face changed. Something suddenly felt very wrong. It was that feeling of _something _on hearing a civil defense siren or hearing a news bulletin about an impending nuclear attack. Staring down at her glass, she saw reflected golden flickers: coming from behind her, probably beyond this restaurant's windows.

"What the…?" exclaimed that other customer with the girlfriend on an arm. His girlfriend was suddenly less friendly and clinging, letting go and looking around. There was now a loud, harsh hissing of static filled this place: replacing the sound of the local music-radio station that was playing on the restaurant's radio. "Hey bartender, something wrong with your sound system? It's not even night-time yet, and it's already going all staticky."

The policewoman looked at the bartender: who was now incredibly still and paused in mid-action. It looked as if the man had been replaced by a life-sized mannequin. There were no words from him, not even movement. This, while the sound from the sound system remained agitated.

A petite, dark-haired waitress in restaurant uniform came over here, set her tray atop the bar, and ducked behind the counter. She must have been doing something to the bar's radio tuner, because now it was no longer just the sound of tortured, raging static. Now there was singing…

It was very beautiful singing mixed in with that noise. The policewoman strained her ears, even turned around on the stool in trying to catch the dreamy notes. Such a beautiful and dreamy song. It sounded like a sweet, sad lullaby, sung on a cold and dark night… But the reception was just so terrible Where the Hell was all the radio-static coming from?

Turning around had also given her a view of what else was happening. From her raised vantage point, she could look over the tables, seeing over the heads of the now-agitated customers. While they angrily chatted at each other and gave annoyed glances up at the ceiling, she could see a man in a white trench-coat. A scientist's lab-coat? Maybe, but it was difficult to be sure as the day out there seemed to have been _dimmed_.

It wasn't even close to sunset yet, still the afternoon. The policewoman glanced at her watch just to be sure. Yes, it was still hours yet before sunset. The local weather always tended towards cloudiness, seldom with sunny weather. But there was a difference between an overcast day and the end of the day. Something was happening out there…

The scientist out there mouthed some words, and his head burst into flames. The more loudly he tried to speak, the more fiercely the flames raged. A man was on fire out there, and here she was. She was sitting down and doing nothing.

"God…!" she exclaimed, quickly getting off of the barstool. She then made long, quick strides towards the door and began taking off her jacket. This revealed her tight-fitting white top: as well as the holster that held her snub-nosed pistol. So what if it would make the customers nervous? They ought to be aware of what was happening outside instead of just complaining about the restaurant radio's poor reception.

…

She swung open the bar door and dashed out. Out here, the wind howled along this sidewalk as cars slowly drove by. The man in the white trench coat was still standing next to that window and looking in this direction, his face twisted in misery as flames continued to burn. As for the trench coat itself, there were smeared patches of oily black on the sleeves and on his red pants as if he had crawled through somewhere dirty…or out of it. She raised her jacket and began to approach the man on fire. She planned on using the jacket to smother the flames.

"Stay calm!" she shouted. ""Cover your face with your hands! I'm going to… _What!_" A sudden _blast _of heat and pain made her stagger back, made her fall onto her back: leaving her stunned. For the space of a moment, everything seemed covered over with a haze of pain and misery. She thought that she had been shot, or that the man had been armed with a bomb: having blown himself up. This left the woman to wonder if, when she sat up again, she would find any parts of her body missing.

When she recovered her breath , she snapped to her feet in two quick movement. The second movement included her drawing her pistol and looking around: looking ahead. "Freeze! Police!"

The man in the long white coat was already walking away: begin to lope towards the street in a pitifully slow way. His head was still on fire, and his hands already seemed burned away. Still, it seemed as if he didn't mind. What the _Hell _was with this guy?

"I told you to _freeze!_" she shouted. Apparently, the word _freeze _was a bad choice of words. "Stop where you are!" Her arms tensed once when she readjusted her aim. Tense arms were poor for firing a weapon, but it would be difficult to miss at this range. She couldn't have crazed, burning men walking around and using unknown explosives to harm townspeople! "On the count of six, you will stop moving or I will fire!" _Fire…_ _Freeze…_ Oh yeah, she was using all the best words today!

Halfway onto the street, the burning man's head suddenly rapid-blurred back and fourth: his head moving so fast that the woman could hear his burning cheeks and lips flapping. _Whap-whap-whap-whap-whap…_ Just looking at his head do that made the woman feel sick.

"_You can't see the color,_" whispered a wind-chilled voice in her right ear. She shuddered and ducked away! This, while the man in the white coat steadily made his way towards the street. When she was sure that there was no one there, she again returned her attention to the burning man in the white coat. His head stopped blurring long enough for him to look in her direction.

She gasped and blinked as something other than the chill air made her shudder. The man had such a _look _on his face. It was a _look _that managed to communicate an expression of misery that it made her lower her weapon. His eyes held such a depth of loss and suffering, darkness and pain, that not even the caring of a million people over a thousand years could cure it. Through that look in his darkened eyes, the policewoman saw a soul that seemed submerged in the dark and twisted depths of his own personal Hell.

There was the sound of wind howling through a deep, dark place that filled her ears, filling her mind. It was the sound of deep darkness. A sound like this could be heard in the darkest caves and the oldest crypts. Yet this sound was authentic. This sound was real. The perceived howling of souls in empty and dead places was mixed in. And when the burning man in white trench coat opened his mouth, it was much like a cave: dark and open.

__

The catalyst changed before. She'll change again, came his words, though his mouth did not move. The flames atop his head brightened. The wind howled and seemed to add to the fire. It was beginning to burn bright enough to hurt the eyes.

__

We saw the War. We-e-e-e saw them darken the land. If her body dies, then they can lay claim. They…can…lay claim to the catalyst! Do not let them co-o-o-oncentrate her-r-r! Ough-h-h-h…!

"What do you mean by that?" asked the policewoman…_just _before she was struck quiet with a headache! She clutched her head and bent over in reaction to the pain. This pain was so bold and evil that she could not move or act when necessary. Or maybe there would have been nothing she could have done. It was unfortunate that she could not act, because soon came the sound of a beastly _roar _coming from one end of the street. A blast of air, and the roaring sound turned out to be the bass-deep grumbling of a heavy truck-engine: a massive, night-colored garbage truck that came out of nowhere.

It filled the street and the air its huge noisy mass, shaking everything with noise and vibration. The large vehicle had a front large as a monarch's crypt, a driver's cab as big as a house, and a massive black-and-white rear payload section big enough to hold a starship. Flames shot up from the exhaust pipes mounted on its roof, obscuring the top of the vehicle with smoke, while multi-armed creatures and men in red coveralls and multi-armed creatures clung onto the huge sides. How such a huge monstrosity of a vehicle could move so fast seemed impossible. But there it was, moving with sinister speed and reckless abandon… _Fwoo-o-sh._

It was that monstrosity of a vehicle that sped right over the man in the white trench coat: a tsunami of metal and engine-roar that not even the end of the world could stop its momentum. The man was of average height, but he seemed little more than a child's toy in comparison to the dark nightmare-truck that just ran over him.

_Run over?_ No, it seemed as if the massive vehicle _ate _him: white trench coat, burning head and all. He was gone. There was not a trace of the man after the rumbling passage of the huge truck. When the massive metal vehicle came to the end of this street, there was another blast of wind…and it vanished again, going back to wherever it was that it came from. _Thank you very much._

The policewoman slowly holstered her pistol and took a few steps closer to the street. _What the Hell just happened here? _She kept asking herself that question repeatedly as she stared at the street, staring and wondering. There should have at least been loose change, scraps of torn cloth, _something _left on the street after the accident. Instead there was just that dual thick streak of reddish mud that went along the street.

Hell yes, that truck had certainly been here, something not imagined. There were two streaks along the street, long reddish streaks of drying mud. There were traces of smoke from the thing's fiery exhaust still hanging in the air and fading fast. She could _smell _the burning and still had the memory of the way the thing shook the sidewalk in passing. And that man was _there_. _Right there…!_ Before that scientist walked into the path of that huge truck, he was standing at the restaurant's picture-windows: on the outside, looking in.

He was gone now, no more threats of men with burning heads or ice-cold words being whispered into her right ear. So she holstered her pistol and walked over to her jacket: on the sidewalk where she had dropped it. There was some reddish grit on it from the sidewalk, which she dusted off. Jacket on again, she considered what to do about what just happened. Someone had just been _killed, _yet all the evidence there had been was just a dual streak of reddish mud.

This wouldn't be the first time something of this sort happened in Pleasant River. Emergency switchboard calls came in about falling bits of airplane debris or trench coat-wearing men with dangerous dogs. But going to the alleged crime scenes turned up nothing but footprints or bits of junk. Nothing else, not even the most minute bloodstains, was ever found.

And nothing else would probably be found here, either. She _could _write up a report. She knew what would happen: her desk sergeant would politely tell her he'd file it with a police captain, the police captain would then file it somewhere else, and the issue would just be classified as another one of _those _incidents. _Those _kind of things happened all the time in this town; it could not be helped.

…

When she went back into the restaurant, people had resumed talking and eating at their tables. The sound system was again playing the blather of the local FM radio station, mixing easy-listening music and on-the-air commentary. There was no static in the sound. And over at the drinking bar, the huge bartender was cleaning mugs and chatting with the customers. Nothing much was happening here other than business. The stool she had left earlier was now occupied.

She walked over and took up another place at the bar and reached into her jacket's inner pocket to take out a twenty-note. Carrying money this way was safer than carrying around a purse, though it seemed a little masculine. "Hmmph, and a big tip! Thanks," said the bartender as he took it up.

He went to put it in the cash register. When he came back, he asked, "I was watching through the window when it happened. Truth is… If I was you, I'd probably hold off on telling anybody until I thought about it some. Or I'd just forget about telling anybody about it at all."

She thought about the words she had heard on the wind, that burning scientist's words. Now she was trying to put some kind of meaning to them, trying to figure that statement out. He mentioned something called a _catalyst_. And he mentioned people "laying claim" to a woman, as if she was a piece of property to be owned, like part of a machine… _Do not let them concentrate her, _said the scientistWhat did he mean by that? And who was this all about?

2.

…

It was the weekend, yet there were some things that had to be done at the school to insure that it would remain _animal-_free. This included doing some cleaning, inspecting the devices, and insuring that they worked. After overseeing such things, Selena returned to the house. She showered again and changed into a fresh outfit more befitting where she wanted to go… This outfit was a great deal like the one she had upon arriving in this town: close-fitting jeans, deerskin boots, and a cream-colored blouse to help offset her complexion (which was still a sickly pale), and a leather jacket that was as dark as her hair. A new small purse slung over her left shoulder, and she was ready.

The young woman wanted to go _out_ today: to mix with local people, to _socialize_. All the time she had been in this town, there had been nothing but her doing what was necessary. Everything she had done so far had been in service to filling in roles left empty by Arnie's departure. Now it was _her _time. And she knew _just _how she was to spend it. Being with people was important to her, being out in light and life. If this town was a version of the one she had left, then there should be a place of the very sort she would enjoy.

Half an hour later, she had driven up to a café in the downtown area of Pleasant River. This place so happened to be on the very same street as the restaurant frequented by a certain red-haired policewoman. In fact, several dining places managed to stay in business on the same street. Things like this were possible in tourist towns. That, and other things were made possible here: such as how this café managed to retain a look it had kept since the 1950s.

…

The diner was arranged for comfort. There were booths with tables along the right side of this place, set next to the window, for customers who came in to eat meals: a small bookshelf of spare books at the end. The left side had a small stage for musical performances and a jukebox: next to which were two doors for bathroom. At the end of this longish space was the counter itself where food was prepared. A man in white shirt and pants was at work behind that counter over there, a circular cap atop his head while several waitresses in white-and-beige uniforms catered to the customers: of which there were perhaps a dozen.

The customers themselves were an especially lively bunch, sitting at the tables next to the window and at the long dining counter. Most all of them had black clothes: from black jeans and tee shirts with leather jackets for most everyone to knee-length black skirts and dark silk blouses for some of the young women: a clash of styles. There was coffee and tea being drank while open books were being discussed and cited. Some even sang parts of songs or read poetry aloud. So much was happening here and going on, so much food and drink, so much discussion and gesticulation, that she soon became overwhelmed. It truly was impressive.

"You're here, Selena," said a woman's voice behind her. This made Selena do a quick-spin around, turning fast enough to make her hair and purse whip: her right hand having gone to the base of her throat. A person was _truly_ surprised when one could feel one's heart leap up in one's chest!

The source of the voice turned out to be a tall waitress with pinned-up blonde hair. She was dressed in a long black skirt and white blouse, the waitress uniform of this café. "We knew that you made it, but we couldn't have been sure if _you _still stayed _you_… You catch? It's easy to see what's in front of a person. But seeing behind some things is always something that takes a little work."

Flustered, Selena asked, "But how is it that you knew of my name prior to my presence here? I am bereft of nametag or any other label. Further true is how I have never been introduced to you…nor you introduced to I. My name is uncommon enough that even a haphazard guess would not have succeeded in an immediate correct response. Again, how did you come to know of my name?"

The tall waitress smiled, her face looking somewhat elfin. "Like I said," she added, "it's easy to see what's in front of you. If you don't understand, then maybe you should walk out that door, think about the things you see and hear, then come back when you remember. And don't forget to remember yourself, too. Because you can't have forgotten already. I f you have, maybe some tea will tug up some submerging memories."

Selena shook her head. "There are, at times, places and people best forgotten. If not forgotten, then they have already been consumed by the flow of time." Her eyes narrowed. "Or they have been consumed by something else."

"Ah, but it's also good to remember _why _you want to forget," countered the tall waitress. "If you don't, then you'd forget why you've forgotten, and then you'll remember! To remember why, I'd recommend the cinnamon-flavored tea. Just head right on over to the counter and have yourself a few cups. He knows just how to make it. Cinnamon flavored, not actual cinnamon. Everyone in this café has had enough of cinnamon."

"Hmm… Yes, I shall take up that recommendation, " said Selena, feeling the edges of a headache tugging her head. She walked over to the counter and felt just a bit disoriented. Seated at the tall stool, she pulled up her legs as so the heels of her boots hooked into the circular rung of the stool's support-shaft. This, while the din of excited conversation continued.

The café cook walked over to Selena's spot at the counter. "Hello there…" he said, looking into her eyes. "Oh, I see what your problem is. You're just a little dizzy from your transition through that _other _place, that's all. I know _just the thing._" He turned his back and went to the beverage-preparation machinery. The machinery consisted of two cylindrical machines set in the left-side wall, silvery pipes connected to the ceiling. A few adjustments of some small valves, and the cook had made the beverage-making machine on the left produce a tea that smelled especially sweet: even among the other smells of food here. He came back with a tall cup of red-colored tea that smelled too good. "Here you go…! Cinnamon-flavored. Most all the benefits, none of the trouble."

"Never mind that!" snapped Selena, suddenly irritated and impatient. She quickly grabbed up the tall ceramic cup of cinnamon -flavored tea and tilted back her head, arching her neck as she greedily gulped down the tea. The young woman would probably have fallen out of the stool had she not set her boot-heels in the rungs at the bottom of the stool. There was plenty of it, good… It was so very delicious, so _goo-o-ood_… She was sucking the tea, consuming it, her throat pulling the liquid into her body. Even when the cup was almost empty, she shook out the last few drops into her open mouth. It tasted as sweet as children's souls, just as she knew it would.

Then came the _rush. _The warmth of the cinnamon-flavored tea spread from her abdomen and throughout the rest of her body. It then spread up her neck and into her head. The world was suddenly afloat in bliss and delight. Selena felt…_wonderful._

This was followed by a massive backlash of sadness and guilt, feelings of remorse for miserable things she did not quite remember doing. Selena could feel her cheeks become red with blushing. Memories were coming into focus, coming back. Oh yes, the cinnamon-flavored tea allowed her to remember: even remember things about herself she did not want to recall.

That cook in white gave a knowing nod as he gently took back the ceramic teacup. "Ah, _now_ you're getting your mind right again," he commented. "Now you're in much-better shape to talk about the affairs of this world. Everybody already knows an awful lot about what's going on: the animals, the lights in the sky, the nightly fogs of the mind… But we speak about it in our own style… _Right?_"

"That's very right," responded Selena. There was a napkin holder close by. She took up one of the soft tissues and began to dab at her lips. "And anyway, nothing would make the right kind of sense if we did. Understanding the colors is more important than just seeing them. It lets us know what's there."

To this comment, the cook snapped the fingers of both hands and pointed to the tables. "That's as good as gold! I think you're ready to head over to the tables and share some words with the others. They're travelers too. It's good for travelers to swap some thoughts together. It sure beats talking to themselves."

"Talking to oneself may be passably tolerable," began Selena, "so long as there is not a response from the same source." The cook took up the tall cup and refilled it with something much more soothing: and certainly less strong: than cinnamon-flavored sweet-tea. This was coffee. With this in her hands, she unhooked her boot-heels from the lower rungs of the stool and walked over to one of the circular tables populated by people dressed as she was.

One such table had four seats, three of the seats already occupied. Two men and a woman were over there… One of the men reached over the table to grab the top of a chair to turn it around: making it face Selena. It was a gesture that meant, _Come on over! We've got a Hell's worth of things to talk about._

Selena decided to accept that symbolic invitation . She came to the table and set the ceramic cup of coffee before positioning the chair for sitting. She did, lowering herself onto the chair and eyeing the dark-clad others. Indeed, not only did all three of these people have the same style of clothing as herself: jeans, tight shirts and black leather jackets: they all had eyes the same color of hers. Even the woman with ash-blonde hair had dark eyes.

"We've been through a lot, even if we don't remember it," commented one of the men, his hands on his cup of coffee. He looked at Selena. "Girl, you're looking into my eyes and thinking, 'God, what does that man know?' Well, I can't tell you all that I know." He leaned forward. "Do _you _know what you know, Selena? Is _that _your only name?"

"If the label is appropriate, it is certainly worth maintaining," answered Selena. She took a gulp of coffee. "Things would become especially inconvenient if people began calling each other by the wrong names. We would all be people in the wrong places."

"Or the places could be right," added the pale-haired woman at this table. "We're not always the right people at the right time. Then we'd have to ask ourselves who the right people are. That's a world of conversation by itself. Maybe we can just decide to be happy being where things are better."

…

3.

…

The police chief was a wide-bodied sort of man, dressed in pressed slacks and buttoned-down shirt. He sat at the back of the forensics lab of this police station. This basement-level laboratory wasn't especially large: perhaps the size of a kitchen. Yet what it lacked in size it made up for in equipment in addition to the two ceramic brass-lined tables for the autopsies themselves. Machines along one end of the room had two light-based microscopes, an electron microscope, spectral-chemical analyzers, machinery for fingerprint analysis, and even some sophisticated pieces of equipment from the Animal Control department. Half of the machinery here was stuff the police chief couldn't identify

Mid-sized towns like Pleasant River normally didn't have facilities for autopsies. Autopsies were done in cases of suspected foul play: as in _murder_ cases. And, usually, murder cases in mid-sized towns were investigated by the state police. That was the way things _normally _went. But anyone who came to this town with _normal _in mind would best get back into his or her car, make a U-turn, and commence driving back the way he or she came.

Yeah, just maybe he should have done the same eighteen years ago. It was his cousin , a senator, that connected him with this lofty job within the Pleasant River Police Department. His senator-cousin had heard of an opening for an administrative position within a nice-sized New England town and made a few calls. Before long, the job was his. Then he found out what was going on in this town.

By then, it was too late to back out. The last two police chiefs of Pleasant River disappeared under circumstances so bizarre that the FBI would commence criminal background checks on anyone who even bothered to ask. Meanwhile, that senator-cousin said that the things happening in Pleasant River were too important to walk: or drive: away from.. Just stay friends with Samuel Longhorn.

The police chief just crossed his big, sleeve-covered arms and watch as that trio from the Animal Control department lectured forensics scientists. It was the thin blonde woman in coveralls and gold-colored sweater who was doing the speaking now, the woman with the looks of a Swedish fashion model and the mechanical behavior worthy of a robot. The chief wondered if the Animal Control department was in the habit of taking slender blonde women and sucking out their emotions…then replacing it with machinery and artificial chemicals.

"…With that as a basis, preliminary observations in comparison to native forms of local wildlife would give false conclusions. It would be misconstrued data," she continued. "I refer to an entirely separate classification of organisms: not plants, not fungi, and not true animals. Referring to these organisms as _animals_ would merely be a matter of convenience. This convenience and generality comes at the cost of accuracy. The biochemistry of these multicellular organism includes much in the way of properties that exceed those of wholly organic and multicellular in terms of quantum potential: such as their relatively high electro-magnetic potential even when compared to that of electric eels."

_Huh? _Past the first sentence, the police chief was lost. He would have much preferred that the pretty blonde woman speak in sentences with fewer syllables apiece. The words she spoke were far beyond the edges of his comprehension. There was therefore no reason to bother reaching for comprehension. As she continued speaking, he instead decided to take glances up and down her slim physique: clad as it was in coveralls. The skin left exposed by her outfit: face, neck and hands: was unusually pale; blondes normally had a blushing ruddiness to their complexions. He imagined her nude body, long and pale-colored body in bed as his eyelids drifted…ever downward…

"For example, your police personnel have noted a great deal of noise and interference with radio-based communications in the presence of _animals_: what you call 'static.' Also true is how the police personnel experience the effects of light distortion and chronological abnormalities. This is a direct result of the metabolic processes of the so-called _animals_ interacting with fourth-dimensional sub-strata on a quantum level."

The police chief blinked and shook himself. He'd fallen asleep for perhaps six seconds. Now, the blonde woman was moving closer to the table with the _animal _on it… A woman who looked that way ought to move with grace. The blonde woman moved somewhat _too _gracefully: her long slow strides _too_ smooth. That, coupled with her manner of speaking, led the police chief to especially question if she was a real person at all. In this town, who knows?

"This _animal_, for example, was capable of distorting electromagnetics-based communications within a thirty-six meter radius." She gestured to the brass-lined ceramic table in front of her, atop which was something nasty. This was the kind of _animal_ that resembled headless deer, with horns instead of a head and neck. It was lying on its side, its six legs not moving. And the multiple mouths that lined the sides of its ribcage no longer inhaled or exhaled air. Eighteen bullets had seen to that.

_Fourth-dimensional sub-strata? _Sounded like something a physics professor jazzed on LSD would say… The police chief felt himself falling asleep. He much preferred to be in his office and talking trash on the phone with members of the town council. He was a politics man, which was why he was promoted to chief in the first place. This sort of lecturing was best left for people who wore lab coats and earned much less money than he did.

But the Animal Control department insisted he be here for the lecture. At least the blonde woman was cute, which added to the interest value of her boring talk. Creepy, but cute. Boring though it was, he would stay awake. Maybe he could impress her with his staying power.

"Note that the _animal _seems relatively inactive due to the extensive tissue damage rendered to its body," she continued. "With most all terrestrial multicellular organisms, trauma to vital organs: the rapid loss of blood flow: would result in of life-cessation. Such a loss of life is due to the loss of blood circulation, through which vital nutrients and other chemicals are circulated throughout the body. That would be the case if the organism relied on such organs for vital bodily processes. That is not so with these _animals_. Beyond vestigal growths, the bodies of these so-called _animals _have no true 'organs.'"

The police chief understood that much. So the animals have got no ordinary guts… Who cares? The two other women in white lab-coats were interested, but he wasn't. It was forensics job to be interested in scientific laboratory stuff, not his. As he sat in this hard chair, he resumed an earlier fantasy: that of imagining the slim blonde woman in white overalls and gold-sweater, imagining what she looked like without those clothes on. He also played with thoughts of the two female forensics scientists being naked underneath their long lab-coats… That would have been a great deal more interesting.

What if the deer-like _animal _atop the table was to get up and tap-dance. Yeah, or better yet, what if it sprung to its feet (or hooves), and did a rendition of the "Charleston Shuffle?" Those cloven hooves would probably have tapped out a pretty mean beat on that metal table! Then he could take the messed-up looking deer-thing to York City to appear on the Charles Manson late-night show!

"They may not necessarily be subject to 'life cessation,' either," she added. As soon as she said this, the two others from the Animal Control department wheeled over a tall machine with what looked like robot-arms. "If we were to subject the body to a magnetic field of the correct resonance, we would find the results to be especially reflective of this idea. Of note is how the body has experienced excessive trauma. It does not breathe and has ceased movement hours ago."

Hey, he knew what _dead _was. He wasn't stupid! Why the Hell did the blonde woman have to explain that to him? Wait… She was beginning to do something. Something wasn't right here.

The thin blonde woman in white overalls had indeed moved over to the machine set next to the table. She began pressing several keys on that multi-armed machine next to the table. One of the machine's arms extended, with parts of it unfolding to form a sort of metal lattice-work that closed over the top of the table: closing over the corpse of the deer-thing. A few more button-presses, then there was a deep sort of humming sound coming from the machinery. It was a low bass kind of sound that a person felt at night-clubs and late-night parties, the sort of low-frequency thrumming that shook a person's insides. Except this was no night-club. And there were no visible speakers.

It was a good thing there was a half-cage over the table, because now the headless deer-thing began to buck and shake. Maybe he'd get that tap-dance routine after all. Except now he wasn't so enthusiastic about it: now that the deer-thing was becoming lively. _Thump… _It was the sound of the _animal _trying to get up. _Thump… _It tried again, its progress halted by the cage closed over the top of the table.

__

Thump! The _animal _only succeeded in _slamming_ the left side of its body against the arcing bars of the cage: trying to break the cage and stand up as its neck-horns scraped against the autopsy tabletop. The police-chief didn't think that the flimsy latticework-cage would hold.

"What the…!" exclaimed the police chief, getting to his feet and reaching for the holstered pistol at his right hip. Only an effort at calm kept him from drawing his weapon and putting even more holes in that thing. He almost expected the _animal _to break out and cause trouble.

The automated cage held. The machine from the Animal Control department was more than enough to keep that deer-thing in place. It only kept trying to slam and _slam _and _slam _its body against the jointed bars above it in trying to get up. Heavy, grotesque wheezing sounds began to come from its multiple mouths. The blonde woman adjusted a knob on the machine, slowing the animal. A slow ooze of dark oily liquid formed beneath its body and spread over the caged table. Now his attitude towards the blonde woman in white coveralls changed. For her to experiment with _animals_ and calmly do grotesque things like this made her seem especially inhuman.

"What the _Hell _have you done, woman!" he exclaimed, angrily pointing at the breathing _animal _atop the table: the sound of _animal _breathing and the oddly thrumming machine making him uncomfortable. Of course, dreamy thoughts of unclothed women and tap-dancing deer-like creatures was gone from his mind. Now he was full of other emotions. "That thing was _dead _when this forensics lab obtained it. It was so dead that we might as well have crossed ourselves and said prayers for it!"

"The purpose of this activity was to provide raw, analog data for your analysis," explained the blonde-haired woman in coveralls. Her blue eyes seemed cold and hard as she calmly continued. "Your minds remain closed to truths that would upset your epistemological equilibrium. There remains a human perception of what constitutes _reality _within this culture. For example, consider the dichotomies you maintain. The color white and the color black, on and off, life and death, such are examples of digital distinctions drawn." She made a quick gestured towards the table. "However, not all entities neatly fit within such simple perceptions. In fact, such entities as these may be intent on using the narrowness of your perceptions to further their aims of destabilizing."

One of the labcoat-wearing forensics women spoke up. "You mean, they're working together to _scare _us? Scare the entire town…? They're just animals. It's not like they can understand our conversations or open up newspapers. If I mentioned the threats of nuclear war from…" _Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…! _She was startled by the outburst of laughter from the animal: the sound coming from the six mouths along the sides of its body. Three of those mouths began to ooze a dark liquid..

The _animal_ atop the table made some gurgling sounds. Then it gave another burst of laughter. When it sensed that the forensics scientist-woman was frightened, it guffawed and made a few jerking motions with its horns. Oh, it was _intelligent _alright.

"To generate fear, that is exactly it," countered the blonde-haired woman in white coveralls. She began to press buttons on the console of the machine next to the table, which was still making that thrumming noise. "These _animals _are extremely capable of understanding the socio-political contexts they seek to infiltrate. The term infiltration is used with intended connotations: There is in fact a collective party at work seeking to disrupt the social fabric of the worlds they touch."

"Ridiculous!" blurted the police chief. He didn't want to admit that he only understood perhaps half of what the woman had said. He did, however, disagree with the half he did understand. "You make them sound like aliens invaders or something like that. But to do that, they would need brains. These _animals _don't have brains. They're just a bunch of messed-up things from the forests around here. That's all." He looked at the _animal _atop the table, which gave a low chuckle from its multiple mouths. "_That's…all…_" he hoarsely whispered, as if to reassure himself.

"That is an unfortunate statement that perhaps even you yourself do not believe. You are speaking in denial of the reality presented," stated the blonde-haired woman in white coveralls. "Regard the evidence of your eyes and ears. Open your mind to wider truths. Only then will humanity be able to effectively address the threat facing it. To wit, it would be psychologically beneficial to continue this demonstration under that logic. Yet your level of exposure is close to being exceeded. I shall end this demonstration before risks of significant contamination occur." That said, she turned a knob on the machine to the left.

The thrumming sound from the machine ceased, and so did the _animal_. Its ribcage slowed its movement as it stopped breathing. There seemed to be a final wet and low chuckling from the mouths of the animal before it gave a long sigh. Then it was as "dead" as it was when it first arrived at this police station.

…

4.

…

It was late afternoon, and Selena was done with the day's activities at the school. The building was cleaned. All devices were in place to deter pest problems. Though she wanted to stay for at least an hour more, to be sure that the school would be safe from trespassers of _that _kind, Smith and Karl insisted that it was time to go. Sunset would be within a few hours. Being away from home after dark was usually not a great idea in this town. Besides, all equipment was in place to keep things safe and fine.

It was good that the maintenance tasks were done soon: Being around the animal-repelling devices and other equipment was worsening her headache. Selena thought it was because of her particular reaction to those devices set throughout the school grounds. But her reactions usually only came about when she was in proximity to the devices. Even in driving away from the school, the pain in her head remained terrible: tolerable, but still hurtful.

This two-lane road going to the residential area was especially busy now as so many other people were getting off work at this time. The pain was putting a dark haze over her eyesight . It was also pulling down her eyelids. And the headache only made driving more dangerous for her. As the headache worsened, it threatened to pain her into unconsciousness: fainting from pain. She struggled to keep herself conscious and alert, gripping the steering wheel: her hands beginning to ache with the effort. Any second, she felt as if she would black out and her car would drift over into the woods at the right or into…cars going the…opposite…way…

There was a stoplight at the intersection, and Selena snapped awake. She shook her head, which was now so full of pain that the edges of her vision was being faded out with darkness. She was also beginning to see dazzling sparkles dance before her eyes. This was referred to in animated cartoons as "seeing stars": when the pain was so terrible that it led to hallucinations of dazzling sparkles.

That stoplight was still red, all other cars still stopped. She reached down towards the dashboard to turn on the car radio. This was the time of day when radio reception would begin to get worse as the nightly fogs of this town prepared to roll in. Still, she needed _something _to keep her awake.

__

Click! An atrocious _hissing _and sound of static and jumbled-over radio commercials began to fill this car. It was atrocious and obnoxious enough to perk her up and help stave off unconsciousness. Her headache still had its claws in her head, but now the danger of blacking out was reduced. She was soon in the residential area, there being more trees and woods around here. Her hatred for the noise kept her going until she came to the street her house was on.

…

Ah, there it was. A few streets more, a few more turns through the streets, and she was parked in front of her house. Why the houses were so close together that there was no room for driveways or garages, she could not understand. There was plenty of land in this town to space out houses, room for car parks and garages. There was certainly land enough to make for forests and woods interspacing neighborhoods. Or maybe the people of this world did not believe in car parks and driveways? It certainly seemed so!

Oh well. It was but another small peculiarity to deal with: along with her atrocious headaches. And why did she still have the radio on! A _click _of the radio knob, and the car was blissfully quiet. Then was too quiet. Since there were no cars driving by on this residential street, since this car's engine was off, it was now so quiet…_that the quietness…_itself became…_suffocating_. It seemed to…_close over her._

_Please no… Not now, she thought to herself. Even as her head lolled and she slowly slumped sideways across the front seats of this car, the young woman in the janitorial outfit struggled to keep her mind from sinking…down… She thought about turning on the radio as strength left her body… Somehow the radio came on. She didn't touch the knob. Or she really touched the knob and didn't feel it… She didn't know._

The radio was on. Except, instead of playing static, the radio was somehow playing a dreamy song. It was a song gentle enough to be a lullaby. Of all the horrid luck…!

Darkness closed over. She heard the sound of flames and screeching machinery in the distance: coming this way. It had to be the sound of burning machines falling from the sky. Then came twisted visions of bleeding trees in the forest as rotting, once-dead townspeople staggered through fog and chanting prayers in a lost language from ninety thousand years ago.

It was a prayer in a language to be remembered at the end of the world. Burning machines and poisoned rain fell from the blackened sky above. Streets of metal were dimly lit underfoot as buildings of machinery began to collapse in the distance. Muscular, green-skinned dwarves in red coveralls crawled up from the red-mud ground at the sides of the metal streets, coming to o take the souls of survivors… This, while other such beings were already taking such souls aways, taking them away in long dark-colored body bags full of squirming shapes.

…

In another world, through an industrial-style hallway, there was the sound of Machinery at work. It was a variety of mechanical sounds, resulting in a steady and deep sound heard in any factory. Warm blood churned through pipes and into red-lit rooms.

One such room was at work. Rust-cased engines thrummed to life as muscular creatures manipulated valves. Their bald heads began to blur in vibration as their six-fingered hands gripped the valves, the patchy fur and skin of their arms tensing as they turned. A hand wrapped in mucous-encrusted bandages wrapped around the top of a long red lever.

…

It was sunset, and the police officers of Pleasant River were strategically parked throughout the residential neighborhoods: in alcoves and at sides of streets. So positioned, they were sure to park beneath streetlamps. When the sun went down, the light from streetlamps would be the very few places where one could seek refuge in light outside of the houses. That is, _within _the houses. People tended to leave porch-lights off and curtains tightly drawn: blocking off any possible sights of what happened outside when the sun went down. Some of the townspeople with better-paying jobs even bought motorized metal shutters that rolled down over their windows.

__

Moira, the red-haired policewoman, was now in uniform: the close-fitting gray pants and buttoned blue-gray shirt of the Pleasant River Police Department: with black-leather riding boots encasing her feet and calves. Of course she had the brass badge worn on the left breast-pocket of her uniform-shirt: over her heart. She was in the driver's seat while her partner: a somewhat chubby man with a huge cylindrical-shaped tuft of brown hair atop his head: was riding shotgun. Over to the left, above the street and in the distance, the Western horizon was already in the last colors of deepest red before the night itself took over. This car's communications radio was already washed out with static; they had turned it off.

"Oh God," began Bill, the chubby policeman. "Here it comes, Moira. No matter how many times I see it, it always gives me that nasty kind of feeling inside. Just look at it…" His eyes seemed to sink into his chubby face as he squinted in watching the sight unfold in front of this police car.

__

Not only could Moira see it, she could _feel_ it as well. As the sun continued to set, the low-clinging fog rolled out from the nearby woods that backed the residential neighborhoods…fog rolling in from all the forests and woodlands of Pleasant River. It gathered, coalesced and crept along the ground, billowing and smoky. It even seemed to take on living shapes. And the orange glow of the dying sunlight only made it seem even more sinister: covering over shadows and fogging a view of the street. She could hear faint _screams _in the distance, with faint _moaning_ even closer by: just outside this car. But she knew better than to open up the car door and look for sources of the sound. She _knew _what was making those sounds.

It was always best to wait for the sun to go completely down and the fog to lessen in density: that just-under-twenty-minutes space of time in which the fog became less a dark and smoky layer at knee-level and instead became a faint mist over the night. It was the transition time that made for the highest level of danger and trouble. More than once, police officers who had to step out of their vehicles during this time had the outer layers of their boots grayed by whatever chemicals there were in the town's fog when it first came in. And where the boots did not fit, their legs were reddened.

__

So, stay in the car they did. Ignoring the faint sounds of screams in the fog, the vaguely human moans on the wind, even ignoring the faint _scritch-scritch-scritch _sounds coming from underneath this policecar, they stayed put. It wouldn't be long before the initial noises were over, after the transition. The night itself would be here soon: after the changeover.

And here it comes. The last of daylight went away from the sky, and the sky overhead became a vastly deep dark color as the streetlamp overhead made for an island of light in which this car stayed. With the house windows closed and curtained and even shuttered, they were but shapes in the gloom and darkness. "Now it's dark…" muttered Bill.

__

As soon as he said that, the car's radio turned on: all full of static. No, it wasn't all static. There was the sound of _something _in the radio-noise. Something that was… Then Bill reached for the button when Moira raised a hand: her _stop _gesture. She tilted her head to the left, left ear towards the radio. There was a thoughtful and strained look on her face as she listened into the sound on the radio.

There really was something in it… It sounded like a woman's singing. It was not loud enough for her to understand the lyrics, or even what language the song was being sung in… It was just loud enough to catch the cool, sweetly beautiful melody, which was just so far away. She had heard singing like that earlier in the week…

Then the woman's singing was completely smashed by a fresh blast of static: a horrendous racket coming from the radio-speakers. There was also another kind of sound, outside the car. It was a thick and meaty sort of sound with an occasional _crackling _within it. The sound, Moira knew what it was. Every human being, at some level of the mind, knew the sound as well: regardless of what land or time they came from. It was the sound of _fire_.

And it was coming from everywhere at once. Moira looked around and could not see any flames. "What…? Where!" she heard Bill say. He was more agitated than she was and had even unbuckled his seat-belt as so he could better maneuver his chubby body in looking around and back: looking through this car's windows and towards the grated-off backseats where arrested suspects were put. Still, the sound was increasing in volume as the source of it seemed to be coming closer still.

There was a sudden yellow glow and rumbling sound as a very heavy vehicle rode past this police car. Just a glimpse of the speeding thing along the fog-obscured street was all they had as it sped by. It was a vehicle, speeding through a residential zone, and the thing _was on fire._ "Let's take it, Moira!" yelled Bill.

"Wait! You try to buckle up again!" she shouted. By the dim light coming through the police car windows, she saw Bill began to fumble with his seatbelt and angrily shook his head when he failed. He could not get the damned seatbelt buckle to _click _in the slot. For whatever reason, seatbelts never worked for Bill after the sun went down.

"Forge it! This seat belt will not work!" he finally shouted. "_Want me to report that we let go a psychotic driver of a burning bus because of a bad safety belt! _Risk is in the line of duty! We can't let freaks like that just go! So…_let's go! _Giddyup!" He flicked a switch on the car's dashboard, which turned on this police car's sirens and lights before starting to slap the dashboard.

So Moira did. She started the engine and put this car in gear. They started off in a squeal of tires, speeding along this night-darkened street. The burning bus was at the far end and easy to see as the thing was a vehicle-sized bonfire. It seemed to be watching, waiting for this police car to come closer.

She slowed this car down to pull up behind the flaming vehicle, several cars' distance away. The flames from the vehicle made for a flickering glow that was reflected on the hood and through the windshield. Any closer, and there was a fire hazard. The driver of that bus was probably already dead. Hell, given the intensity of the flames, no one could be alive in there unless they had on some kind of suits…

Just as she put this car in _park, _the burning bus _zoomed _off. There was a quick back-blast of flame as the thing zoomed off: the glow of its fire rippling in the fog. _What the Devil…? _Moira could not believe it. One second, the thing was at a dead stop. Then it blasted off from a dead stop: as if the damned thing had a nuclear-powered motor. "What the Hell are you waiting for?" exclaimed Bill. "Let's get 'em!" _Wham…!_

…

_In a darkened place, Ereed N-joh mentally recited a song of worlds as he worked part of the Machine. His altered three-fingered hoof-hands stuck to the valve as he turned it counter-clockwise. This opened the way for blood to pass through pipes of the Machine. Ereed N-joh was a very skilled Worker, very skilled at using the engines of the Machine: which was why he was being used now. For the first time ten thousand years, his skill was being used. To him, blood alone turns the wheels of time…_

…

Slowly coming back to consciousness, Moira heard the echoes of a chant in her mind as she recalled what happened. Something big and loud had piled into their police cruiser from behind. She was knocked unconscious despite her seatbelt as the left side of her head hit the driver-side window. Had she not been wearing the safety harness, she would have been thrown right through the car window itself as the passenger side was obliterated. Bill was…

The thought of her partner goaded her… further into consciousness. First she felt an electric feeling of pins and needles from the neck-downRisking injury to her neck, she slow-w-wly sat up and opened her eyes, using shaky fingers to get loose strands of hair away from her eyes. Someone was pulling at her ankles, her riding boots: fumbling and bumbling with sloppy hands.

That someone turned out to be some_thing_. Even in the dim light of the streetlamp, she knew what that thing was: an _animal_. It was the kind of _animal _that resembled a mutant ape in cyborg gas-mask. Its mucous-slimed fur reflected the dim light of the streetlamp as its arms and hands worked at her boots, also tugging at her tight-fitting police-issue pants…

_Pervert! _She drew her handgun and shot the animal: a sudden _blast _of sound and light. The bullet punched through the thick muscular chest of the _animal _and made it tumble backwards. It got to its feet and quick-loped into the shadows along the sides of this street. This also sent up a sound of ragged agitation among the other animals.

Head aching and a sharp pain in her neck, Moira managed to stand. She felt weak, but using a pistol did not require that the user be at full strength. "_My pistol has brass bullets!_" she yelled. The _animals_ in the gloom and behind cars, more of them behind roadside trees, they seemed to chitter and grunt in response. "_Brass _bullets. You know what that means. And I'm wearing gold jewelry underneath my clothes, too!"

The _animals _would certainly keep their distance now, she knew. She could even hear some of them galloping and loping away, going off into the darkness at the sides of this road. They could sense that she was telling the truth. With some of them gone, now she could turn to see what had become of the police car.

It was a wreck beneath the light of a streetlamp. The way the light shone down on it, shining down in the darkness, it was as if the thing was on a stage. One side of the vehicle was completely crushed and blasted: destroyed by whatever massive vehicle that had run over them from behind. The other side, the side Moira was in, it was somewhat intact: the door open when the _animals _had opened up the vehicle to get her. Whoever or whatever was driving that vehicle in chasing the burning bus, they must have been so Hellishly impatient that they were willing to kill police officers.

They were killers, because Bill was dead. There was no way he could have survived that impact. A head full of pain, her body a mixture of numbness and agony, Moira staggered over to the ruined police cruiser: half of the car crushed and obliterated. Bill's body was certainly in there. Just a glimpse of his dead hand in the mangled wreckage was all it took for her to see that.

She could feel tears coming to her eyes as she turned away from the wreckage: tears of frustration unto misery. Bill was dead and there was _nothing _she could do about it. There was another patrol: another set of police officers: assigned one street over. The walkie-talkie still somehow clipped to her pistol-belt was useless, since it was after dark; she could not call them. Moira would have to get there herself.

As long as she had her pistol ready and stayed in the street, sticking to the places the most well-lit, she would be okay…if she didn't fall unconscious again or if her injured neck didn't become worse. Moira wanted to live long enough to get the monsters that killed her partner. Though there were doubts, she _would _stay alive.

And so she began her painful steps along the street. She walked through streetlamps as the _animals_ crouched in the darkness. They grunted and chuckled, jeered and taunted. Some even occasionally said words. This only gave her the will to stagger onward in getting to the next police car. At least some others would know that the burning bus, along with another unidentified dark vehicle, was loose in this neighborhood. It only meant that someone else would suffer this night.


	5. Chapter Five

__

Silent Hill: The Dream Machine

Chapter 5

By Elliot Bowers

…

Here on the Longhorn Estate, things were going according to plan. Samuel Longhorn was in the mansion: within his grand office, seated at his desk. The satisfaction he felt was shown with the extremely wide smile on his face. He had major reasons for being happy, and one of those reasons was right here atop this desk: it being contained within a bottle.

Because _it_ was something that he had finally obtained after years of exploring religious texts and the forests of this town. _It_ was something that was extremely rare and almost never owned in such large quantities. Prehistoric tribal leaders possessed some of it, ancient monarchs managed to find more of it. And masters of religious cults spent their lives in pursuit of it. And to think, places in Silent Hill were powered on the fluid.

Now, Samuel Longhorn had found a source of what was sought: an entire _bottle _of the red stuff. He had long suspected that he could obtain it from an engine: one of the pieces of Machinery that had appeared in the woods some years ago. Now it was one of several that had been connected to supplies of electricity and tanks of mammal blood.

Years, he had been at work on those engines for years. He had tried various amounts of electricity, using multiples of the numbers on the engine-cases to adjust voltage and switching the polarity. He relied on the numbers because the odd letters on the cases were not in a language he or any friendly anthropologist could immediately identify: let alone translate. Then there was the issue of blood. Yes, the engines also required _blood_. Pig's blood seemed to have produced the best results: getting the engines to become at least become a few centigrade warmer. But otherwise, the engines did not work…

Until recently. Something happened somewhere that made the engines start to _work. _Not only did the engines radically heat up, but they also actually _started to work_. Rumbling and roaring, the engines were operating. One of them actually began to create the fluid. When that oh-so-precious red substance began to drip out from a spout of the engine, he caught it in a laboratory flask. The blackish-red liquid was warm and he wanted to drink it straight away, but his patience held. And it held for the full hour that it took to drip out of the engine. His muscles aching, nearly falling over with pain-filled knees, there the man crouched as the rusty part of the Machine bestowed upon him what he sought.

Now it was in this wine-bottle atop his desk, the red liquid that resembled blood diluted in liquid fat. Little black bits in the fluid kept trying to climb up the sides. Little dark shapes were swimming in it and constantly moving. And he knew that any radio within thirty meters of the bottle would _scream _with interference as Samuel Longhorn tipped the bottle and poured some of the red fluid into a tall glass.

Flowing, the liquid contained in the bottle seemed to have become excited. Those little black shapes in there began to swim even more furiously and outright _enthusiastic _about getting into the glass. Some of them even melded together to form shapes with dozens of little arms and legs, trying to swim faster. The liquid was alive with activity as if it was being boiled.

With the little dark things swimming around in it, feeling the blood-warm temperature of it through the glass, he began to drink it. It slid down his throat with ease, almost not needing the peristalsis of his esophagus to get it down into his stomach. Down it went as he gulped and gulped… Touch down!

The agents of the red fluid took almost no time in getting to work. Because once the red stuff was within Samuel Longhorn, it pervaded the lining of his stomach, invaded his bloodstream, and the man's mind…_began to take turns for the bizarre_. _Time to go, came the thought in his mind: followed by a rushing torrent of amazing images and scenes._

Wow… His mind was somewhere else now! He had a vision of a massive, dark nuclear-powered trains churning through a smog-hazed desert: with ruined industrial cities in the distance across the burning and hazy landscape. Where or when that vision had take him, Samuel did not know. It was a view of somewhere else: somewhere amazing.

Another image came! This one was that of muscular midgets in red coveralls tearing off the helmets of silver-suited figures to get at the heads. The midgets seemed both angry and happy in what they were doing. Something had happened to those people in suits, something bad enough to kill them. It was probably some kind of accident… If they were chemical workers or astronauts, it was hard to tell.

This was followed by another image, that of odd dogs staggering through alleyways. Gaps in their green flesh exposed the meat of cancer-ridden muscle tissue. They were thoroughly contaminated, all of them. Having eaten their fill, they left the pile of carnage to be consumed by other animals: pasty skinned creatures feasting on the remains of arms and legs stiff enough from rigor-mortis to almost be like parts of mannequins.

_Samuel was only vaguely aware of something happening to his body. What he could not see were the things happening to his skin: as seen on his exposed face and hands. The little dark shapes in the liquid, now throughout his body, were so pervasive throughout his body that they could be seen even crawling beneath the surface of his skin. Yes, Samuel Longhorn was becoming blessed in a very severe way._

He fell to the floor and became a writhing, groaning figure of a man as a circular part of the carpeted floor turned black, with gray lumps: liquefied. A Denier crawled up out of that mush. A wide grin on its human face, it crawled and squirmed along the carpet in getting over to where Samuel Longhorn lie on the floor. The Denier had much to tell him. And since he had drunk of the red liquid, it would be much easier for them to communicate. Where was the catalyst?

…

_As Selena's mind surfaced from the visions of the nightmare, she was first aware of everything_ _being dark. No, it wasn't dark, but it was close enough. And there was the faint feeling of some things…_ crawling across her legs and abdomen_. "Agh-h-h…"_ she gagged, pulling something out of her mouth and coughing. Quickly sitting up at the front of the dimly lit car, nearly hitting her head on the ceiling, she saw that a hoard of tiny little men that had somehow gotten into this car here: little things that were not supposed to exist. But here they were, all over her! Since she had fallen asleep parked in front of her own house, _they _had crawled all over her unconscious body and were doing things.

_"Not this way…!" _came a harsh whisper from her mouth. She had tried to scream the words, but her throat was aching. While she had been unconscious, one of the little bastards must have tried to crawl down her throat! Now they were again climbing over her jeans-covered thighs on their way to her shirt…

A sudden seizure of frenzied panic drove her to _slapping _and _stomping _them in the gloom within this car, her knees knocking against the steering wheel more than once as she _stomped _and _hit _and _squished _the life out of them with the soles of the dark work-shoes she still had on her feet. Their little hard bodies were like clay, taking quite a stomping against the floor of this car before they stopped moving. Though she must have squashed at least two-dozen of the accursed little buggers, even more of them seemed to be on the seats and crawling towards her legs: tiny little smiles on their tiny little human-like faces! So she kept _grabbing_ and _stomping_, _slapping_ and _squashing._

This she had to keep up for some time. There were just so _many _of them. And wherever they touched, it sent little thrills of panic: then localized numbness. In fact, her hands were becoming so numb from touching them that it was getting harder to grip them. And it was this numbness that was beginning to climb up her wrists. Yet there was no stopping. She kept at it until she had the last two in both hands and was _slamming _them to the car's floor and could _stomp _the life out of their touch little bodies: crushing them along with all the others!

She opened the car-door and began to kick them out of here. Their little bodies tumbling out like so much limp-bodied rubbish. Some of them flopped sickeningly, their backs and limbs broken. But Selena felt no sympathy for the little men-things. They had tried to do…things to her she chose not to think about.

Then they were gone. It was now very still in this car. Save the sound of the night wind _how-w-wling_ darkly outside the car and the very low _hiss _of static from the car's radio, everything seemed still. Feeling was beginning to return to the places on her legs and hands where she had come into contact with them, and she was beginning to feel better.

But she _knew _there were more, she could feel it. Selena tried turning on the car's interior dome-light, which would be an improvement on the poor dim lighting coming from the nearby streetlamp. Cars were designed differently in this world, so it took her a little while to find the switch… No, of course it did not come on. Even when she turned the ignition switch, car keys embedded, they would not come on. The car would not even come on.

Quickly reaching for the glove compartment right of the dashboard, she fumbled for something in there. There had to be at least one electric torch stashed within this car. Did they even have flashlights in this world? She had seen Smith use one against that so-called mysterious stranger: although it was modified… _Yes there were!_ There were several such long devices in the glove compartment, and she grabbed the biggest one.

__

Flick! A mistake! The resulting _flash _of light dazzled her and gave her a headache, so she quickly turned it off. Another "flashlight" only seemed to make some kind of buzzing sound without producing light: making a noise that made her grit her teeth in in severe irritation. The third flashlight really _was _a flashlight. She used it to look in the gloom at her feet and around the seats. Yes, yes, _yes… _The little men really were all gone: as far as she could see. Though she could still feel lingering bits of ache and numbness in parts of her body, the nasty little perpetrators themselves were gone.

That was done. Now Selena reached up to pulled down the retractable panel used to block out sun-glare: which had a small mirror attached to it. By the light of the flashlight, she looked at her left hand, switched the flashlight to the other hand to look at her right. Her wrists were encircled with harsh abrasions. She looked in the mirror, pulled aside some lengths of her hair and tilted her head to a side: looking at her neck in the small mirror. Then she carefully touched the discolored skin: which was tender and pained. There was a nasty, reddish-black bruise that went all the way around her neck: as if they had tried to fit a _torc _around her neck again. Those tiny men…

_Thud-thud… _There was a slow, rhythmic thumping sound at the left-side window. She turned her head to look and panic filled her as she saw what it was. The electromechanical gas-mask that was bolted to its face made for a grotesque, robotic-eyed stare as its hairy arms and hands continued to tap at the window. When it realized that it had her attention, it pulled back its arms and was preparing to break in with a _smash_. Selena focused on the _animal, _centering her thoughts_…_

…

_In another place, certain parts of the Machine began to hum. These parts of the Machine had long since been dormant: resting in darkness and having grown cool. Now they thrummed with renewed life. As bandage-wrapped paws worked valves and levers, Deniers crawled along thick black electrical cables and rusty pipes along the ceiling. The demands of the Machine were increasing, and they obliged._

…

_You shall not, _she commanded. There was a sudden deep _snarl _of sound, and the _animal _at the window was struck sideways by something unseen. This was followed by mewling and whimpering from the _animal_ as its body died out of view, beneath the window of the car. She waited for a long second, waiting to see if it would get up again.

It had worked. She had attacked with a command from her mind: by just thinking about it. And she would be ready again to attack, perhaps harder the next time. She flicked off the flashlight before daring to crack open the car door. The dome-light from the open car-door spilled out into the fog of the night: a view of the house's front porch across the short lawn. She saw the _animal _nearby. It lie still with a broken back and would not be a problem any damned more.

…

She climbed out of the car and closed the door behind herself. Something laughed nearby. _Run… _A dash across the patch of grass and up the stairs of the front porch. A quick look to the right and left indicated that she best hurry, so she did… Her quick footsteps pattered across then up the wooden steps and to the front door itself. She grabbed the front doorknob, her breath quick and nervous: her breaths whistling through her still-injured throat as the pain began to spread to her head. Whatever those tiny men were trying to do to her in the car, she was beginning to feel the ill effects.

The front door…was locked. Oh, damn! She had left the keys…back in the car!"_Ergh-ha!_" triumphantly squealed a voice from the foot of the front porch-stairs: crouching in the foggy gloom and shadows. It was as if the _animal _sensed Selena's mistake and knew that it had an upper hand in the situation.

The thing was the size of a goat, but Selena knew better. That was no farmer's livestock. She gave a quick and vicious thought in the _animal's_ direction. This was immediately matched by a vicious swiping _blow _by an invisible hand, and the _animal _was struck down. Yes, her abilities were strong this night. She gave another commanding thought at the _animal _quickly hobbling across the night-darkened lawn: crippling the thing with one blow.

She quickly went down the stairs and again dashed across the strip of grass separating the porch from the night-darkened sidewalk and street, her car being parked _right _there in the indirect light of the streetlamp. "_Lookinella-tadoo!_" declared another one of those voices over there. Selena had to force herself to ignore the myriad sounds of hoof-steps, footsteps, shuffling and sliding that seemed to be coming from left, right, and behind as she struggled with the car handle: which she now realized was now incredibly rusty.

But how…? It was but a moment ago she had left the car. Now its opening mechanism was rusted shut! Why was it that just now nightly fog just now ruined the car's door: on a night like this? And it certainly wasn't locked; she could feel the door just slightly giving as she tugged with her fingers and used her legs to add to her pulling.

Something groped her left thigh, and she let out a shriek: just as the car-door handle _popped _off in her hands and made her stagger backwards. She tumbled and fell onto her butt, and the large hairy _animal_ leapt atop her. The weight of the thing held her down. It grunted with satisfaction as it reached for her shirt. When she summoned the _thought _again, the animal was _blasted _away.

Shaken, she quickly got to her feet and began to _run: _her head swirling with dizzying pain. She _ran _even though she felt ready to collapse with sickness from whatever was happening to her body, whatever was done to her. They had tried to _contaminate _her.

"_Oblamah! Garb-snarfle elkirc! Satya-a-agraha el lookinella!_" came the gibberish declarations from one of the _animals_ as she continued her dash through fog and gloom. This was soon followed _animal _sounds coming from behind. _They _were coming to get her. Selena knew who _they _were. She also knew that being taken by them was the last thing she would ever want. Because to die here and to be claimed by _them_ would be something dark and terrible. Selena was running for more than just her life.

As she ran, thoughts of her hometown came to mind. She thought about the people who were _blessed_: those with distorted bodies and faces. The religion she followed, the religion of her hometown: had been used to summon what would have been called _disease_ and _infection _by outsiders. Except this was more a contamination than anything. That was the way she saw it: a _contamination_. She no longer considered it _blessing. _It was from _animals _and mysterious strangers, also from the engines that appeared in forests. She had hoped to escape what happened in that town of Silent Hill, in another world. The contamination followed her here, _wanting _her. This was her literally on the run, running for her life as she knew it. If they were to get her…

"_Uh?_" she gasped, surprised. There was a _crunkle _of sound as a section of the sidewalk crumbled beneath her feet and wrenched her left ankle. This tripped up her running motion, making her tumble and collapse, making her scrape her knees and the palms of hands. The pain in her neck and head was worsening now, and her abdomen felt as if it was being eaten from within. Everything just hurt so much. She just couldn't stand up anymore, even as the _animals _stepped out of the surrounding fog and darkness.

Ah, but she did not need to stand to render attacks. Just a _thought _at one of the _animals, _and it was struck up and away. She looked at another animal, something with a furry skull growing out of its chest. That was also struck back and away: bones and body breaking. They continued to close in and Selena continued to _think _blasting thoughts at them.

_Crunch! _One of them had its head squashed flat by an invisible blow. She quickly looked at another pair of _animal_s, gave another _thought_, and both were knocked up and away. But the dozens of _animals _kept coming closer. They crawled, hobbled, ambled their ways over the bodies of their fallen brethren. They would have her…

There were just so many of them, too many of them. Whatever abilities she had held within her, whatever amazing amplifications had been given, such was not enough to stop _all _of the _animals_. She was just so sick, so tired… There were sixteen _animals_. Then there were thirty-two. And then thirty more still came from everywhere else, from out of the ground and behind houses and out of the shadows… Some of them were armed with rusty pipes and large chunks of concrete. Those without arms had their hard cloven hooves, or they had long sharp horns where necks ought to be. The _animals _closed in. One of them swung a rusty metal pipe: _hitting _her especially hard.

The dark-haired young woman fell onto her back, limbs sprawled, her eyes glazing over as a haze of pain swam over her vision. It was almost a relief when the another hard blow finally landed. She just let her eyes close, the sound of her own body being beaten fading into the distance as darkness closed over. Dying was not so terrible after all…

__

…

The _animals_ sat on their haunches or laid down flat, doing what they could with whatever physical shape they had. The largest of the _animals _were sitting in a circle around Selena's body, which lie dead and still on this sidewalk: legs and arms sprawled out, eyes staring and mouth open. They waited until one of their kind came crawling out from the surrounding fog-enshrouded gloom. It was that kind of _animal _again, the kind with a man's head and a torso with six arms: a Denier.

The six-armed creature moved with the slow and measured graceful pace of a holy man about to accomplish part of an important ritual: proud and solemn. Which, in a way, was somewhat true. Two of the Denier's hands grabbed Selena's ankles and lifted to spread her legs. Staring for a moment, sniffing the air, the denier let go. It turned around and used its two rear arms to again grab the ankles: a convenient hand-hold as so it could drag the body away.

The other _animals _whooped and snarled, hopped and danced about as the denier began to drag the body towards the back yard of a house. They now had the final ingredient required for conquest. The catalyst sought to dilute itself, but now it was theirs!

…

2.

…

_To the fading sound of blood being gush-pumped through rusty pipes, the red-haired policewoman sat up on the hard floor_. _She now had on her casual outfit of jeans, deerskin boots, white shirt, and black leather jacket worn over: the jacket unzipped and open. She also had an especially evil headache. The left side of her forehead was darkened by a reddish-black bruise, and it pained her when she touched it. She thought she heard someone _scre-e-eaming_ at her. Like the sound of the pumping, that screaming also faded. She inhaled, exhaled and forced herself to open her eyes despite the aching headache…_

It was hard for her to see at first: everything eventually brightening and coming into focus. One of the florescent tube-lights overhead was flickering…and it…stopped flickering. Her headache faded as well. Though still present, it was bearable. The wall at her back was dominated by large rectangular windows for those dark-shrouded figures who were sitting at the tables: the waitress bustling about as the bald-headed man behind the counter at the far end poured someone a beer.

The policewoman sighed and used the wall to keep her balance as she shakily stood, her jeans-covered legs feeling unsteady. It had all the elements of familiarity, but she knew for certain that this was _not _someplace in downtown Pleasant River. She'd been to all the downtown places at least once. None of them had this setup. And the red-colored light coming through the window seemed wrong: a blurry view through reddish-grimed windows. Though some of the customers were familiar, she never quite recalled seeing them all in the same place. _Is this a restaurant, a café…or somewhere else?_

"That has the color of the right answer," came the tall waitress' voice. The policewoman turned quickly around…and _quickly_ regretted it. A fresh stab of pain penetrated her head, making her sway and stagger. The tall waitress in long black skirt and thin white blouse, she was standing between the policewoman and the window. She was holding a tray atop her right hand: a tray with a cracked ceramic bowl atop it. In fact, the bowl was in such bad shape that it probably wouldn't be used again. "The view outside has the right color, too. Just don't look outside for too long, or you might start liking what you see. That would be bad."

She looked past the tall waitress and at the red-grimed window. It was so atrociously dirty: grungy with rust, dried blood, and greasy mush that it actually took her a while to realize that the grime and such was actually _outside _the window. The glass on this side of the window was still shiny enough to reflect the florescent lighting. To the far left, beyond the dining booths, was the door out. Nobody here even looked at it. And the policewoman had the feeling that going outside would probably not be a good idea: if it was possible. Whatever had happened out there probably also rusted the door shut.

In here, the other customers were watching a television suspended above the short-order counter: or the drinking bar, whichever it was in this place. The television old-fashioned, with two analog knobs to change channels and a third knob to click on and adjust the volume. The picture quality was horrible to the point of distortion: a blurry image with smeared colors.

A closer look could perhaps give a better idea of what was on that television. This in mind, the policewoman walked farther into here and kept her eyes on the television up there. _It must be a damned good show to take their attention like that, _she thought. None of the others here seemed to mind the horrible reception.

Now she could see what was on. It seemed to be showing the image of a tough-faced man in burgundy-colored tee shirt and slacks, thick-soled black shoes on his feet…and a red cape at his back. He was in a dark place, a spotlight shining down on him from above. The cape was flapping and waving as he danced: waving his arms around, tapping his feet and occasionally tilting back his head to grin upwards. He wagged his finger up at the light, hopped up and down, then resumed his frantic dance of maddening joy.

The waitress walked up behind the policewoman and whispered in her right ear. "_It's an especially important show. We hate who's playing the star-role, but we watch it as necessary,_" she said, the low voice blowing into the policewoman's ear. "_By the way, this is your bowl._ _If you want to abandon it, I won't blame you. But abandoning it means that _they_ can lay claim to all of it._"

A vaguely confused expression on her face, the policewoman turned to see what the tall waitress was talking about. Indeed, the bowl-in-question was atop a tray. It was cracked in places, split and certainly not worth using anymore. In the background was the sound of the man on television tap-dancing like mad and chuckling aloud. "Excuse me? Sorry, but why would I want to keep something like a broken bowl? It's not like it's some kind of family heirloom I inherited from generations back." She eyed the cracked, ruined thing atop the tray of the waitress. "I'm glad to see that you care about what you think is important to other people. But to me, it's just broken junk." The policewoman shrugged her shoulders. "Sorry… But thanks anyway."

The tall waitress tilted her head to a side and gave a sympathetic smile. "You do not understand. Or maybe you don't want to understand. You people have your pains. And your own fallings. Hmm… Tragic, really." She smiled. "Well, then! I really shouldn't have interfered this way. My boss advised against me getting this anyway. Before I send it back, would you like to make contact with it once more?"

By now, the policewoman was thinking that this waitress was certifiably insane. She at least rated neurosis… It had to be one of those classifications. Who the _Hell _would care so obsessively about a piece of broken ceramic crockery? An oatmeal bowl! For goodness' sake, it was _just a damned broken _oatmeal _bowl! _What, was she supposed to have a priest say last rites over it and bury it in the ground? She imagined what the headstone would say: _Here Lies Moira Brennan's Broken Bowl. It brought much joy to the world in holding breakfast foods. May it rest in pieces._

_Just a God-damned bowl, _thought the red-haired policewoman. She gave a quick sideward toss of her head to get some lengths of hair out of her eyes, then stood straight-backed and with heels together: the way she had been taught to stand at police academy when doing something respectful. Hands reaching, her fingertips came closer to the broken bowl patiently held by the tall waitress. If the tall waitress insisted on this, then she may as well make a show of it. When her fingertips actually touched, she felt herself…_going down…away and through… She was going into the sound of those pipes…_

…

_R-r-r-umble… Squee-squee-squee-squee… It was the squeaking of this stretcher's wheels going through this hall: the metal axles squeaking. This wheeled stretcher was being pushed along an ill-kept, rough-topped industrial-style floor as the deep thrumming of the Machinery hummed throughout. She was on her back, looking up at the ceiling of this hallway: windows on the right and light fixtures together producing dim light to see by. The ceiling of reddish metal mesh: the kind of reinforced steel top-fencing put in prisons and hospital psychiatric wards to keep patients from climbing up. Except that metal mesh was nasty with crusty rust. Some pieces of it had long since snapped, making for gaping openings. Beyond the rusty ceiling mesh-work were thick wires and exposed pipes: the exposed workings of this place._

The pipes, they were crusted over with more rust. And those thick electrical wires were smeared with grease: as if the people or animals trained to maintain them were nasty themselves. In fact, one such animal was doing something up there, using its middle pair of arms to work a thick-headed tool across a jointed intersection of pipes. It then grabbed a wire and began to shake it, making one of the light fixtures flicker.

That light fixture flickered, but there was still light enough to see by: coming from the windows. But the windows high up on the right side of this hall were no better. Not that cleaning the windows would have been too much of an improvement, since the quality of light from the outside was too much better: the light of a dying sun. She guessed the windows were probably not washed in over thirty thousand years.

_Had she been able to guess aloud, and if she could understand the language spoken by the muscular, broad-chested midget pushing this cart and the other ones accompanying it, they probably would have agreed. About the light… It was the light shining through those windows that allowed her to see this: the weak, reddish-orange sunlight shining through the window. Even if she could have somehow gotten up, climbed atop something and had a look out of those windows, she suspected that the view: or the quality of sunlight: would not have been much better. There was something very sad about this place. She could feel it, the emotional weight of misery and rot in the air. She did not want to be here._

And if she listened carefully enough, the sound of the Machine also seemed to be mixed with the distant sound of moans. There were other sounds as well: sounds of mad gibberish and twisted minds, promises of obscenity and deadly pain. Only this kind of place could do such a thing to minds because here, death was no escape from the madness. She let herself go away, not wanting to be here at all. The sound of gushing pipes filled her mind, and she let it.

…

_Staggering back…_also meant breaking contact with the surface of the broken bowl atop the waitress' tray. She was on the floor, having fallen onto her butt and elbows. "I am not gloating in saying this, but I truly did try to warn you. I really did! Oh, _why_ is it that you people never listen?" mourned the waitress. "Now I shall truly dispose of your broken bowl, if it causes you so much misery. I am not one to take pleasure in the pain of you people. That would be the responsibility of others.

"In the meanwhile, you are free to have a seat with the other guests here until you can decide what you want to do with yourself: go back as someone else or continue your way. After all, this is just a rest-stop, not the final destination…. Hmmph…" That said, the waitress turned and carried away the broken bowl: taking it to the doorway to the right of the drinking counter: to the kitchen.

_It couldn't have, _she thought. _I had two clips full of rounds. Pure brass bullets, all of them! But how did I…?_ Her thoughts whirled with bewilderment and sadness as the truth came flooding back to her. The tall waitress was right; Moira must have wanted not to know what had happened. Now that she did, however, it changed everything. Now, the truth was as real as that man with the red cape on television, tap-dancing and having himself a Hell of a time…so to speak.

She slowly got to her feet and had a look out the café windows: the view outside as sad as she thought it would be. The view outside was blurred to a reddish-brown color, the other side of the glass smeared with that reddish grime and rust. Dark shapes blurred past on the sidewalk and the street, too fast for her to see. Out there was a view of the downtown Pleasant River: a look across the street at dark-windowed store-front shops and some industrial-looking machine-buildings. Cars were parked at the sides…. Odd-looking cars, they were. Like the view, there was something wrong with them. Something had happened to Pleasant River since that night when…something happened to her. Now she would not want to go back. Even if she could go back, she would not want to do so. The town was different now.

…

3.

…

__

Deep within the fog-enshrouded forest, the animals whooped and squealed in delight as they pranced and danced around the engine. It shook and thrummed with deep sound as it pumped an oily fluid into the ground: a gray fluid streaked with black. A Denier was up in a nearby tree and watching the dancing. So long as they danced in resonance to the sound from the engine, coming from the Machine, all went well. The dark power of the Machine had covered this town for quite some time. It was one day of many, this many days since the new beginning here.

Daylight came, but it was not a sunrise. It was actually a lightening and thinning of the fog. But the fog was not completely burned away by the sun. The fog was now too strong for that. The contamination was far too strong and deeply embedded within the soil and air. Now that they had a hold in this world, it was just a beginning. Better yet was how they would soon have the catalyst.

…

This highway passed its way through what was practically still forest-land. To the left and right were areas of tall evergreen trees, dense enough to block off view of everything else to the sides. Those tall trees stretched up to the clouded-over sky above: the clouds colored iron-gray this cold day. Wind blew through these trees. And the sound of the wind matched the sound of the few cars that breezed along this highway at high speeds. There was very little traffic along this route. Therefore, the people in the cars saw fit to drive at speeds that would be considered otherwise insane.

Perhaps insanity was also why Detective Bruce Richter: private investigator: was driving a gold-colored limousine into the town of Pleasant River: a radio talk-show host trying to talk through the ever-increasing static. There was a white-lettered metal sign with an arrow pointing to the to the right, indicating that the town he was headed for was _5 Miles, Next Right_. Minutes more, and he slowed this car down enough to make the gently sloping turn onto the road cutting through even more evergreen forest-land.

Off of the highway, there was a radical reduction in the amount of traffic: and a slightly different change in the look of the air. He seemed to be the only one using this road. Which was fortunate because he nearly had an accident when something _thumped _beneath the wheels: shaking this car, shaking his control. "_What the Hell…?_" he exclaimed as the tires of this gold-colored Cadillac squealed and squeaked. This big old car had power-assisted steering, but he still had to lean forward and keep a two-handed strong grip on the steering wheel itself.

This car was soon again going along smoothly: though now the steering seemed unbalanced towards the left. He could feel the pull in the steering wheel. The impact also jangled the car's sound-system, because now the radio was now playing that flat-tuned, world-famous radio-song known as _static_. He asked himself, _What did I just run over to deserve this car getting ruined? The corpse of a saint?_

The hissing and jagged noise of that particularly obnoxious song only grated his nerves as he fought to keep calm and skillfully tweaked his steering enough to keep from veering off the road. A final _jerk _of the steering wheel to the right, and he was driving straight. He slowed this car down and pulled over to the right shoulder of this forest road: a very narrow lane reserved for emergency stops.

Stopped, he put the car's transmission in _park _and got out: leaving the engine running. He walked clockwise around the car, looking over the tires. It was a cursory inspection to make sure that there was nothing too wrong…. There were some patches of purple fur on the front-left tire, the fur also smeared with dark red.

He went back into his car, closed the door and put the car's transmission in _drive _againHe chose not to perform any closer an inspection of this car than that: If there were any problems, there would be nothing he could do about it until he arrived in town. It ought not be far from here. And while he was at it, he could check why the few stations he could pick up on the car radio now were playing oldies music. There were no problems otherwise: beyond the steering now being annoyingly out of alignment.

The road ahead was long and clear. This lack of traffic, along with the oldies music playing on the radio eased his mood. Now driving at a more sedate pace, Detective Richter mulled over details in his mind as he passed by a roadsign: _Welcome to…Pleasant River! Population: 24,426._

Details, details… The case was simple and simply necessary to solve. First and foremost was the child that had gone missing. Ever since he had obtained the photograph of the lost little girl, a waif of a child, the image never left his mind. It was as if, whenever the detective even _thought _of slowing down on this case, the thought of _her_ came to mind. Like the daughter he never had…

Young children usually smile in holiday photographs, but this one wasn't. On her delicate and pretty face, she had an unusually somber look. Such an adorable child: a pretty face with big green eyes to make any parent's heart melt: her face framed with silky ash-blonde hair. The knee-length summer dress she had on in the photo matched the color of her eyes: a knee-length dress belted at the waist that left her pale arms bare. There were no bruises or other signs of abuse, thank goodness. Other than the unusually sad look on her face, there was nothing wrong with her… Except the fact that she was now lost: the eyes of a lost little girl…

Now the sad little girl was missing. And he had to find her. The fact that a great deal of money was involved had nothing to do with this: more money that he had ever seen in a single check. And that was just the up-front fee he was offered. Even if he had been offered just a ninth of the fee, he would have taken up the case.

Because he felt sorry for the kid. If the one having gone missing was, say…hipping clerk in his thirties, Detective Richter would not have cared as much. The cases he picked up usually turned out to be eloping couples or otherwise unidentified car-crash victims: married or dead. But _this _case, the lost child, he cared for her as if she was his daughter. Divorced early about twenty years ago, Richter's ex-wife never had children. Now a young couple was sitting somewhere, miserable and worried about their lost little girl.

_I'll find you_, he thought to himself as he drove beyond the line of trees into a more wide-open space: bringing him in sight of the first few houses of this town. Maybe she was hidden away in the basement of one of those houses, those houses nestled close to nearby woods. Maybe she was tied to a wooden chair. For the abductors' sake, he hoped they had kept her alive. Because if they had even _thought _about hurting the little girl, he just might draw his pistol and kill the criminals himself when he found them. _I'll find you, little girl, _thought the detective_. Even if it's the last damned thing I do._

…

The detective drove this car into a residential area that was more developed, more densely populated, than the scattered houses at the edge of the town itself: fog beginning to enshroud everything. These were the sorts of old-fashioned row-houses set close together and back-to-back: with small backyards divided by fences. In front, strips of grass to separate the front porches from the sidewalks. He'd seen the style before: quaint and old-fashioned, typical of this part of the country. Quaint, it was also somewhat monotonous. Since many of the streets looked alike, he had to pull over occasionally to check the town map he'd obtained from a library up-state.

Hmmph… If this was Feinberg Street, then Descartes Avenue should be at the end: which would lead right to the downtown area. There he'd find the police station, some hotels, restaurants and shops. Since Silent Hill was wiped out six years back, still abandoned due to the after-effects of the major town-wide fires, this town picked up the tourists trade. It wasn't tourist season. So the townspeople were probably less busy and more likely to talk to out-of-towners. Downtown was the logical place to start.

And logically, following this tourist-friendly map ought to lead right to the downtown area. Here he was, nine miles in from the town's border. But this wasn't Feinberg Street. This was _Sechs _Street. He made all the right turns and was in the wrong place. He'd just _come _from Descartes Avenue, which he'd navigated in getting into this neighborhood. Either the odometer, speedometer and dashboard magnetic compass were wrong, or this _map _was wrong.

Three to one, it had to be the map that was wrong. Never mind the map, then. He folded it up and put it back in the glove compartment. The map was labeled "Pleasant River," but it may as well have been the Town of "Pleasant River" on another planet… Yeah, and maybe this town was secretly run by big-headed, gray-skinned space aliens in little gray silvery jumpsuits: those little guys everybody saw in movies and on television shows about cow mutilations and crop circles. Their big gray dome-heads were probably all full of ideas on how to deceive private investigators named Richter who were looking for lost little girls in New England tourist-towns!

Or maybe not. Then he began driving again. There seemed to be more than a few mid-sized trucks heading in one particular direction along Descartes Street. And where there were trucks, there was commerce. Making a right turn, he followed a trio of those trucks. He was satisfied to see that the trucks were indeed heading for that part of town that had buildings and shops rather than houses, the more industrial part of Pleasant River.

The first tourist-friendly street he saw, the first street with restaurants and such, he decided to stop to investigate. Better yet was how there was a more-than-generous parking lot midway through: between two buildings and next to a diner. Maybe he'd have some luck after all. So he parked this car of his, turned off the engine, and got out: stepping into the surprisingly chill air. Maybe his trench coat, slacks and buttoned shirt weren't enough. The iron-cold _chill _seemed to bite through all layers of clothing and into his chest and chilling his head.

…

The air was just about as cold as his luck. He walked around from the side and around to the front of the café. He grabbed the cold stainless-steel handle and opened the door…or _tried_ to open it. It wouldn't open. The place wasn't _closed_: He could see customers in there through the glass. They were sitting at tables and talking as they sipped coffee ant talked. Some waitresses were even walking around in serving them. The place was open; it was just that he couldn't get in.

He tried rapping on the slightly dusty glass and sticking his face closer. That didn't work. Shading his eyes with both hands, he looked around in there. The waitress continued walking around, and the customers were drinking drinks and watching a television. No one seemed to pay attention, so he stopped. And there was an odd reddish dust on the glass that he didn't want on his hands.

He gave up and brushed the edges of his hands. Fine… If they wanted to lock out customers, that was their business. Maybe there was some kind of private event going on in there: probably a religious event or something. Who knows? He walked away and decided to try the restaurant next door. And as it turned out, the restaurant _was _open.

…

The warm interior of the restaurant turned out to be much more sparse and industrial than he thought. An old Western song lazily drifted through the heated air, a guitar gently strumming as a cowboy sang a sad song as Detective Richter looked around. He saw that the circular tables in here were not actually of polished wood. They were actually formica-topped, their artificial plastic brown surfaces dully reflecting light from the windows. _Dull_ was the word as the tabletops seemed to be slightly dusty: like the checkered red-and-white floor at his feet. The "customers" didn't seem to mind: sitting at the tables the way they were.

No, wait… As for the customers, something wasn't quite right. He casually walked over to one of the restaurant tables, ready to give a greeting if the couple there turned their heads to look. They didn't turn their heads. Hell, they weren't even moving. "Good afternoon," he began, speaking to the young man in red-leather jacket and blue jeans. "I'm here in town to…" The young man continued to stare at his scantily clad girlfriend across the table. "Hello?"

There was no answer: other than the continued playing of that old cowboy song on the café's sound system. The detective leaned over slightly, still making eye contact. When there was no response, he tried waving his right hand in front of the young man's face. "Something wrong here?" he asked aloud. There most certainly was something wrong: The "young man" turned out to be a mannequin.

It was the necks that gave them away. Standing this close to the mannequin of the young man let the detective see that there was a seam between the neck and chin. The "girlfriend" was the very same way: the same plastic seam between head, neck and body. Her plastic blue eyes stared dully ahead. And since plastic tends not to rot for thousands of years, those eyes would probably continue staring at least that long until "she" was tossed into a landfill. Even then, "she" would continue staring.

For goodness' sakes! Mannequins, _all _of the "customers" were actually mannequins: some of the most lifelike mannequins Detective Richter had ever seen before. As that old sad cowboy song continued to play on the restaurant's sound system, he slowly and carefully looked around. All of the "customers" were posed with backs straight and hands atop the table or with hands in their laps. They all seemed posed as if waiting for something. But what? And more interestingly, _why?_

_What the Hell kind of restaurant is this? _As if on cue from that thought, there was then sounds of grunting and footsteps as at least a dozen coveralls-clad, barefooted midgets came out from behind the counter for drinks: all of them dressed in red coveralls, all of them bald-headed and very, very muscular. Some of them came from beneath the tables, climbing up out of the floor. _Click-click! _That was the sound of the door opening as three more of them came in from the outside. Grunting, chanting or whatever, they all closed in on the vaguely confused detective. Not exactly space aliens or gray-skinned creatures, but the appearance of them was odd enough.

"Hey, back off!" he shouted as they spread their arms and came even closer: their amazingly thick arms and hands looking especially menacing, arms powerful-looking enough to mangle trees. He drew his pistol out from beneath his trenchcoat and prepared to fire a warning shot. When they gripped his thighs and waist tighter, he aimed downward and fired a pistol shot at one of them.

The struck midget let go and staggered back, falling onto its back. "_Migosh…!_" it exclaimed as an oily stain spread from its left shoulder and over its chest. "_Mi-gosh, mi-gosh_… _O-h-h-blamah!_" As it writhed on the dusty floor, six more midgets closed up the position he once occupied. They continued to close in.

__

Perhaps the main problem with most revolver-type handguns is that they only hold six rounds. True is how they require less maintenance than magazine-fed handguns. Also true is how high-powered revolvers are more readily available for purchase. Despite the facts that Detective Richter's revolver was both relatively high-powered: for a pistol: and was reliable, it was not enough to keep back the mob of red-clad midgets grabbing at his thighs and pulling him down.

When he struck the floor, they grabbed his legs and arms while one of them gripped his head with extremely rough hands. "You little freaks! What the Hell are you doing? Setting up a phony restaurant, attacking strangers, don't you know how _illegal _this is? You all must be as dumb as those mannequins… _Hey! _Saw what happened to your friend? I've got enough bullets for everybody! You hear me? I'll… _Ulp…_"

The rough hands began to squeeze the sides of his jaw and the thumbs dug into his cheeks as the hands painfully forced his mouth open. "_Ulp-ulp, groova-zoom!_" cheered another one of the midgets as it pulled a red flask out from a pocket of its coveralls. It popped open the top and began to shove the open mouth of the flask towards Detective Richter's forced-open mouth. "_Groova-zoom, oblamah!_" Drops of the dark-pinkish liquid went into Richter's mouth and he sputtered before beginning to drink it. Oh yes, the cinnamon drink was probably the tastiest thing in the world to human beings.

A taste, and no one could resist it. Detective Richter's mouth didn't have to be forced open anymore. He _wanted _to drink that stuff. His mouth open, he gulped and swallowed as much of it as he could. There was nothing but the taste filling his mouth, filling his chest and his head. Even as the rest of his body began to go numb, he continued to drink. His eyes slowly closed as he floated in a red-colored ocean of bliss. It was _beautiful…_

…

An hour later, a large white garbage truck emerged from a thick haze of smoke along the street outside the restaurant. The front cabin of the vehicle was filled with that very same smoke: obscuring the view beyond the glass. It was a wonder that the driver: whoever or whatever it was: could see. Six ape-like _animals_ were clinging to the sides, the fronts of their heads covered with electromechanical gas masks and their purple-furred bodies slimed with mucous.

They ambled their way to the front of the restaurant, where a black-shaped bodybag was waiting. It was this bodybag that they lifted. Even as the detective-sized shape in the bodybag squirmed and writhed, the _animals_ had no problem in hustling this thing over to the back of the crusty white garbage truck and tossing him in there. There were plenty others in there to keep him company, and he stopped struggling.

That done, the _animals _hobbled back to their positions on the sides of this truck. They clambered onto the sides and held firm. A baritone roar from the engine, flames shooting from the truck's dual exhausts, and they were on their way again. There would be more who wandered into town in gold-colored cars in seeking out the princess. But try as they might, those who wandered into this town would _not _have her: not even in a hundred-thousand years.

…

4.

…

Samuel Longhorn, in the office at the West side of his mansion, regarded the lawyers sitting in front of his desk: all of them in wooden chairs. The five lawyers were unintentionally dressed for the occasion, their pale faces a contrast to their dark suits and hair. In fact, all of them were variations of the same theme: all with dark hair, all of similar height, and all with the same professional manner. Of course, one was chubbier than the others. Another one was bald. But all of them may as well have come from the same family: looking so similar. They all sat with their briefcases in their laps: full of important documents, no doubt.

The chubbiest lawyer was seated farthest left. "Now that the greetings are done, we'll get down to today's business…" He opened his briefcase, a double _cl_-_clicking_ sound. Out came a few sheaves of typewritten paper: legal documents, stapled with a decidedly rusty staple. "You are probably already aware of this, Mr. Longhorn, but you are currently the only living descendant of the Longhorn lineage, the sole next-of-kin. Your father had no other children beside yourself, and your mother has disappeared. Besides a distant cousin, there are no other relatives to speak of."

Tilting his head to the left, Samuel was feeling the impatience of his youth . Yes, yes… He was all too familiar with this situation. The lawyers were her to bequeath all the wealth, bonds, landholdings, and such of the Longhorn Estate. They would make several official-sounding declarations with documents in hand. Then one of them would ceremoniously place three documents atop the table. He would sign them, the lawyers would offer congratulations, and they would go back to whatever world that lawyers came from. People sometimes joked that lawyers were demons from Hell, in that they used convoluted language and prolonged bureaucratic rhetoric that mere mortals could not understand: exactly the kind of tricky language strong enough to trick mortals into selling their souls. Samuel Longhorn smirked; the sentiment was at least partially correct.

"On the idea of you being the sole heir to the Longhorn estate, the windfall to yourself will be substantial," said another lawyer, a skinny on the far right. That one had a deep-red tie to go with his dark suit. Samuel Longhorn knew what the lawyer was going to say, but he let the lawyer say it nevertheless. "This is a full and total transfer of wealth from your father to yourself. As you have reached the legal age of adulthood six years prior to this and as you are sound of mind, there are to be no significant legal impediments to this process."

Yet another lawyer spoke, a balding one left-of-center. "We have even managed to bifurcate and evade any and all tax burdens. A variety of tax shelters have been put in place to prevent any shaving off of your inheritance: and will also prevent any taxing of your wealth for at least six hundred years into the future. Though it is doubtful anyone lives that long, even then there will be room for evasion of surcharges." That lawyer gave a small smile, the kind of smile that meant, _Oh, aren't you pleased with how clever we are?_

"You are therefore to be bequeathed all wealth in conjunction with your father's will," finalized the chubby lawyer. He set his briefcase on the floor and stood up from the chair, approaching Samuel Longhorn's desk. The documents went atop the desk for Samuel Longhorn to peruse: which he did. There were no problems with what he was going to sign, so he did. He took up a thick metal pen and signed the bottom line of the first document. Another signature went to the bottom of the second document, and a third signature went to the third document. All of his signatures were in a brown-black color.

That was because the ink in his pen was Samuel Longhorn's own blood. The documents signed, the chubby lawyer took them up and quickly returned to his seat: his thick-soled black shoes making clumping sounds. He sat down and put the documents into his briefcase, the briefcase yawning open much like the large mouth of a beast. _Clomp! _The briefcase almost seemed to make a pleased and satisfied sound as it was clamped shut.

"Congratulations, Mr. Longhorn," said the fifth lawyer, the one with the most plain face. The other lawyers were already up from the seats and headed for the door. "You do know what this means." _Yes, I do._ "With the inheritance of your father, all of his resources are now available to yourself: and more. This includes: but is not limited to: his holdings in this town…and some of his holdings in Silent Hill. This land has power, Mr. Longhorn. _True _power. See to it that it is used well." That said, that lawyer quickly stood up and went for the door.

The rest quickly followed in tow. They moved fast, as if they had some other business that had to be dealt with. Much needed to be done in this town. Since this town was fresh from transition, they would see to it that much would be done. Even the chubby one seemed unusually quick on his feet in getting out of here.

_Click! _The butler followed the last lawyer out and closed the door behind him. Samuel Longhorn was certainly glad that formality was: yet again: completed. He had already undergone this experience before. Yet it was just now replaying again. This time, the "inheritance" referred to by those five creatures, those things disguised as the lawyers, was worth so much more than money… He was already granted immortality. Now he had the power to go with it. And if he manipulated that power correctly, he saw himself as playing the role of a godIndeed, the land has power.

…

Elsewhere in his mansion, five of Samuel's maid-servants: white lab coats worn over their outfits: were in this small square room lit with incandescent white light. Ahead was one airtight metal door of lead, and behind was another. The left side of the room was set with a long table, atop which was a long, red-colored radiation suit, helmet, with gloves and overboots. It was this suit that the labcoat-wearing maids were working on.

The sixth maid was somewhat older and severe in attitude: an austere and thin middle-aged woman in a black dress that covered her from neck to ankles. The skirt of the dress itself was loose, but the upper portion was tight: especially around the bodice, collar and arms. She held a black leather riding-crop in her left hand, which she was always ready to use to distill discipline. "We are approaching Master Longhorn's most important moment for this world," she said. "I should not have to emphasize the importance of this particular operation. Master Longhorn's suit must be _perfect. _He chooses not to be _blessed_ before the proper time: as you all have yet to be blessed. But if he is, the fault will be on our heads."

"_Yes, madam,_" said the five other maid-servants at once, speaking in chorus. They had already inspected this brand-new "hazmat" suit they were preparing, this suit to protect a human body against biological hazards, chemical dangers, and high levels of radiation. Even as Samuel Longhorn himself entered this room, they continued their inspection to be sure that _nothing _was overlooked.

"Good afternoon, ladies," said a youthful Samuel Longhorn, dressed in business clothes and silk jacket. His shoes, however, were casual: soft-soled loafers. Hard shoes would make it difficult to don the hazmat suit. Looking at the senior maid, he said, "I take it that preparations are complete. The room prepared, light bulb in place, and a fresh head for the light fixture… Those are done?"

"Yes, Master Longhorn," answered the senior maid-servant. "All has been completed as you have requested and in compliance with your notes. In fact, the pig has been butchered not more than six hours ago. Though everything is not as flawless as I would have liked, things are adequate. Perfection in service to you is what I seek."

"Perfection? Oh, things are well and fine enough," responded Samuel. "A little decadence here and there is perfectly fine…so long as the decadence does not hinder my great works. This moment is a culmination, a breaking point to act as prelude to what will follow. My clothing must be perfect, though there are ever-so-slight allowances in terms of material preparations. The suit…"

"Yes, Master Longhorn. It shall be yours _at once,_" replied the senior maid. She turned to the maid-servants in lab-coats. "The time has come. Dress your master!" She watched as the maid-servants carefully lifted the suit off of the table and brought it over.

Still in his business-clothes, Samuel Longhorn was eventually dressed in the hazardous materials suit. The long single-piece of material covered him from head to ankles in the thick red material: the cylindrical helmet fitting over his head: the bulky air filters lumpy on his back. His feet and ankles were then covered over with the overboots, while two layers of gloves went over his hands. The gloves and overboots were taped on and sealed with shimmering red-colored adhesive strips.

It took a bit of wrangling to get hazmat suits of these colors, but he succeeded. The colors of white or yellow were certainly _not _befitting this moment above moments. White or yellow, he found, were colors detrimental to the operation of the wonderful engines.

He could hardly contain his enthusiasm. Samuel was again reminded of his renewed youthful enthusiasm. Though it had been days since he was returned to youth, since the local transition, he still had yet to relearn the patience of someone older. Or perhaps it was the draw of _power _that goaded his impatience.

They finished the last applications of tape. The maid-servants looked him over to finalize things. Then the senior maid herself performed a final check. "Master Longhorn, you are ready. All is prepared. All that remains is an opening of the room… I wish you progress." That said, the other five maid-servants opened the door into the red-lit room. Samuel Longhorn moved ponderously in his hazmat suit and went in…

The door closed behind him, a spinning wheel-valve sealing it closed. Now he stood here in this room, illuminated by red light. He had to turn his body completely around to inspect things; this suit had limited peripheral vision, and the helmet did not rotate. The walls were indeed painted black, as requested. At his feet was a floor covered with tin foil: reflecting the red light. And the dim red light came from a light bulb suspended in the mouth of a severed pig's head: the electrical wiring strung through the neck and into the mouth. Every feature, from the black paint to the blood-red light-bulb in the severed pig's mouth, it was all for the optimal operation of what this room contained. For here, as blood dripped from the ceiling, was the engine: part of the _Machinery_.

The large engine was carefully installed and maintained: run on electricity from the power plant and blood piped from the hospital miles away. It, the engine itself, resembled a cross between a disembodied truck-engine and something one would find in an old Russian nuclear submarine. In fact, the engine was dangerously radioactive at times. When Samuel Longhorn found it in the forest, all trees and shrubs within twenty meters of the thing had been blackened from exposure. Other plant-life had grown into unusual shapes and began to take on odd colors. The altered plant-life had been _blessed_.

This was truly a device truly capable of bringing _blessings _to the land. But the engine itself was not enough. It required someone other than himself to control it. That someone did not fully exist…yet. To bring about that person's existence into this world would require a summoning. So summon…_he did, carefully turning thick and heavy valves atop the machine. Animal blood gurgled its way up from the pipes in the floor and flowed into the machine as gigawatts of electricity entered through thick ropy wires. It all went into the engine as shadowy shapes climbed out of the floor. The lightbulb in the pig-head's mouth flickered…_

…

_Flick-flicker… The lights above the hospital bed flickered and dimmed. A long, wet, mucous-lined slit appeared in the bed. In the distance, there was the rumbling sound of an earthquake as this happened. There was a blast of lightning outside the window, along with fiercely howling winds. Something was happening here, something red._

The six-armed Denier clung to the ceiling: its man-like head regarding the bed below. The unblessed beings that gathered here, they were trustworthy enough to see the introduction of the catalyst into this world.. However, they could not be trusted to supervise the process itself. Not even blood-workers could oversee this. Short of summoning a Flesh Lord, only a Denier could do this.

The mucous-lined slit in the hospital bed widened slightly as something red was pushed through: something as wide as an armful and sealed in flesh.. As the trembling increased and the wind howled, the bed continued to facilitate this fleshy birthing process. When the flesh-wrapped thing was completely through, the flickering florescent lights made popping sounds as they burst from the sudden increase in air pressure and electrical power surges…

It was soon over. The wind stopped its howling. All of the trembling had ceased, no longer shaking the room or the things within. Now there was silence and darkness, very peaceful in the wake of the chaos.

_In the darkness, the lump squirmed and struggled. Eventually, a white shape popped out from one end of this flesh-sac. It was a head, wet and streaked with bits of red: the head attached to a neck, the rest of the body trapped within the sac. Two sets of pale fingers came up at both sides of the neck and pulled, r-r-ripping open the sac. This allowed the rest of the child's body to be free of the sac…_

One of the red-masked doctors turned on one of the low-powered lights to give them illumination. They then wheeled a stretcher over to the bed, carefully lifting the child from the bed of flesh and onto the stretcher itself: covering her with a red blanket. Inside themselves, all of the doctors cheered with joy and pleasure. Now that she_ had returned from the Void, the way to paradise would soon be opened._


	6. Chapter SIX

Silent Hill: The Dream Machine

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 6

…

_La-a le la-la-la, la-la-la… De la… La-a le la-la-la-la… It was the sweet, sad notes of a girl's beautiful song that _distracted_ her as she drifted along in the darkness and warmth, going along towards the end. La-a de-da-la-la… She was on her way somewhere when the song grabbed at her. Such a beautiful song, it was. Deep within herself, she hoped and yearned to hear more of the song: to get to the source of the song and immerse herself in the bliss and melody. The song was singing to her, calling her. All that she had to do was get through the right side._

The right side was blocked off, like the left side, the bottom and top: which all curved together like a pipe. Pressing close to the right side, the song was very close. Yet the side would not yield and was preventing her from getting to the source of the beautiful song…

No, she would not _be denied that blissful music. She used a bit of her abilities to press and push. The side began to soften, to become thinner. She was finally able to press through where it was thinnest, piercing a hole that was soft and oily at the edges. It allowed …her to_…_slip through and_ _enter into the bright whiteness_…

__

…

"Ergh-ach!" squealed something in frustration as loose sparks and spatters of blood flew into its face. Confused and frustrated engines began to squeal and shudder with the sound of grinding gears, sparks and blood spurting out from between bolted-together seams in their casings. In this red-lit room, the sparks flared even brighter red and the blood spattered to the floor in shiny drops. A Flesh Lord growled in frustration as muscular little Blood Workers strained at levers. Six-armed Deniers scrambled along the rusty grating of the ceiling and climbed down pipes towards the three engines. Something was delaying the flow of the catalyst, interrupting the work of the engines. Something would have to be done about it. The Deniers began to turn the correct valves, and the squealing, grinding sound of confused Machinery softened. Heads began to vibrate…

…

Selena _snapped_ awake to the sound of two nearby bathroom doors being _slammed _shut nearby. Stunned, blinking her eyes, she saw five wide strips of metal, connected together and whirling. The strips were slowly turning in circles, going around and around. They were resonating with the hum of the electric motor to which they were attached… That was a ceiling fan: a fan attached to that ceiling. The ceiling fan was up there and she was down here, lying on the hard floor of the café. The pain that ached her neck was gone, yet her head was still hazed with the pain of headache.

Headache or no, nothing could be accomplished by just lying about, really: headache or none. She sighed and sat up, sitting with legs together. Yes, it was this café again, the one she had gone to when last in town. This was certainly the place…or at least a version of it. Right now, she was sitting close to the bathrooms: which was right next to a little stage just large enough to hold one band of musicians: complete with microphone stand and blue-velvet curtain. Set before the stage were wooden tables and chairs. Over by the windows was a series of booths for people to eat in. The tall waitress in black skirt and white blouse was taking coffee to one of the booths by those windows: where other patrons sat.

Unlike before, the customers here were of all sorts. One customer was a well-tanned sort of man with dark hair, his white business suit and black tie looking crisp as he sipped coffee and read from an especially thick newspaper. By just sitting, the man seemed to radiate power, drawing attention and concern. Just by being in his presence, Selena felt some of that man's confidence instill some pride in even herself… He had the look of someone who could rule countries by simply appearing on television, or having his voice heard on the radio. It was the look of a powerful being.

Or perhaps he looked too powerful. His suit looked somewhat brighter than it should have been in the sunset-colored light coming through the nearby window: as if a light source illuminated him just him. Looking at him began to give her a headache. He was far too luminous a figure.

Odd… Sitting opposite him at the same table was a petite, dark-haired girl reading a book: a girl dressed in dark jeans and tube-neck sweater: small dark shoes on her feet. Over her hands she wore white gloves. Her night-colored hair and large dark eyes were a contrast to her smooth, almost plastic-looking pale skin: the skin of her face. Hmm, her outfit seemed unfitting to the warm air inside of this café; the girl seemed more dressed for a day of Cold season than a day indoors.

As if she noticed Selena staring, the dark-haired girl brought the fingers of her left hand over to her right and began to tug at the fingertips. She took off her right glove before turning the page. Doing this revealed a metal hand: the articulate stainless-steel joints making slight clicking sounds as her fingers flexed, gleaming fingertips pinching the top of a page. And she kept reading.

Selena blinked and ignored that sight. She chose to look at something else, someone else, _anyone_ else. A tan-skinned glowing man and a dark-haired girl with metal hands, was this place _contaminated _as well? Perhaps she was just imagining things: a mental glitch.

Sitting at another booth was a slumped figure of a person in a large and floppy silvery suit. That suit was so thick and cumbersome in appearance that she could not tell if it was a man or woman in there, with a large shiny hemispherical helmet that mirrored back light: blocking out all sight of who was wearing the thing. In contrast to the rest of the silvery suit, there was a colorful square patch on the figure's right shoulder: horizontal red-and-white stripes in the design of the patch with little white dots in the upper-right corner. That figure in the suit did not belong here, an anomaly.

Again choosing to ignore what she was seeing, Selena shifted her attention to someone else, anyone else: hoping to see a nice, normal group of people. The next booth over, there were four more customers sitting together. They seemed to be eating a what looked like naked little men: their bodies fried fast-food style, like fried chicken. The customers' golden teeth chomped into little naked torsos, tearing at the fried flesh as their plain-white eyes glared. They were just smiling and eating, munching and chomping away. _God_, was anyone normal here?

_Normalcy, 'tis a thing of perspective, _came a thought: someone else's thought: sounding within her own mind. _I bid ye greetings, Sister. _As if she hadn't been surprised enough by every other thing she saw in this place, the sound of a voice in her head made Selena look quickly around, lengths of her own hair getting in her eyes. Something must have happened to her when she arrived herebecause now her hair was much longer than it was before: no longer cut to shoulder-length. After quickly tucking lengths of her hair behind her ears to get it out of her eyes, she looked for the source of the voice…somewhere… Turning herself around, she looked towards the curtained mini-stage: where bands would play for those in this café.

Out from behind the velvet stage curtains came a very beautiful person. She was small and slim, with the stature of a child… Arms and legs bare, she had clear and perfect skin: not a single blemish. Her slender figure was clad in green shorts and a white shirt, with beige-leather boots on her feet. Silken, moonlight-colored hair was combed straight back from her pert face, a face with large green eyes and a poutish little mouth. The red-leather boots on her feet seemed cumbersome, yet this girl somehow moved gracefully across the stage: walking as if the boots were no more than the slippers of a dancer. The confident way with which the girl moved bespoke grace and maturity: more than merely a "child."

She hopped down from the edge of the stage and stood in front of Selena, hands on her shorts-covered hips. "Dearest Sister, ye believes oneself to accomplish big deeds by thinking so terribly small," she said in that lilting accented voice. Her large green eyes seemed to gleam like jewels from the lights above. "Why, ye have even sealed out thoughts of kinsfolk! _Wee _folk we may be, yet the body is but a conduit for the_ mind_."

Selena regarded this dollish girl, wondering where she had come from and wondering why she was calling her _sister_. "Why do you insist on kinship?" Selena asked the girl. "We look nothing alike. Perhaps if you put in eye-contact lenses and dyed your hair a much darker tone, we could pass for being siblings. Or kinsfolk, as you say. And you may grow to be taller in time…" The girl tilted her head to the other side, smiling as if Selena was saying some of the silliest things in the world. "What have I said that is so worthy of derision? You seem to hold back laughter behind your lips."

"_Ha-ha_… Nay, Sister! 'Tis not ridiculous what ye've said. It was _ignorant_, mayhap, yet not thoroughly ridiculous," responded the girl before tilting back her head, arching her slim neck. "At least not blatantly so!" she declared to the ceiling. Standing on tip-toes, the pale-haired girl began to spun herself around, whirling and turning, her long slim arms outstretched and long pale hair fluttered outward as she made her revolutions. Still spinning around, she gave a word every time her whirling brought her around to face Selena. "_A…wee…bit…confused, ye…would…be…! Becoming… dizzied…by…thy…travails…!_" The girl kept whirling herself around and around, as she made her way towards the edge of the stage, where she stopped spinning…

And sat down, dropped down, her boot-covered legs dangling over the edge. She did not seem the least bit dizzy from her multiple gyrations, though her pretty hair now looked somewhat wild and astray. A playful toss of her head and a quick stroke of her delicate-looking, and her hair was away from her face again. She smiled and added, "Ye have yet to comprehend even thyself. A mere look would bring about leagues of clarity."

"_What do you mean by that?_" asked Selena, suddenly agitated. "I know full well what my physical appearance is! Now see here, young child…" She quickly got to her feet, hoping to use her height to show this silly little child some grown-up authority! "Playfulness is expected of children, and I am in no mood to be playful as things are becoming…" She stopped in mid-sentence.

Because now Selena realized that she herself was now no taller than the strange little girl. Looking down, the floor was not as far away as she expected, nor were her feet. Her own body was as slim and petitely proportioned as that of the green-eyed girl: though Selena herself still had on an outfit jeans and shirt, a leather jacket worn over. And her hair felt different atop her head: more filmy and light. To confirm her suspicions, she untucked some lengths of it from behind her right ear and let it dangle in front of her face: holding the ends of the strands in her fingertips. Her own hair had the very same moon-silk color as the strange little girl, as was everything else about her now, perhaps. Then again, Selena herself was not in a position to call anyone else "little."

"Aye," said the green-eyed girl softly. "Aye, indeed… 'Tis the creeping, temporary fear of _self-realization_." She slid off of the stage and sat down next to Selena on the floor, then reached to clasp both Selena's hands: before her words sounded in Selena's mind. _Welcome again, Sister We be kin of the self-same Hill: which has been rendered contaminated by those of the Other world, _echoed the other girl's voice in Selena's mind. _'Tis a _geas_ that that ye be bound to versions of the land in which our Hill has been troubled: troubled by the color of Machines. Now our Hill shall be misused._

"Why me?" asked Selena aloud. She pursed her lips together and tried _thinking_ the words as she stared into the other girl's eyes. _Why me? I was but a novice in our religion. In fact, I was immune to being blessed. Others of the religion have betrayed us and seek to use it in summoning the _Others_: with their hordes of creatures in tow._

_Why ask this of thee? _The green-eyed girl smiled. _'Tis the responsibility of a queen-to-be in coming to the aid of her people's land. Or, would ye continue to be…used? Would ye prefer to be contaminated? _The lights overhead flickered, and there was the sound of air nearby: storm winds. _Sister, I do so very wish that ye retain this knowledge in thy return. Yet ye have a cause. _The lights flickered again, and there was a blast of air as _both_ of the café's bathroom doors opened: making both Selena's hair and the other girl's hair flutter about.

Reddish-brown pools of slime oozed out from both bathrooms as ropy, oily strands of black stretched out to covered the edges of both doorways. _Ye have been found, Sister! 'Tis a binding, sucking summoning! We possess the power to open worlds: a power the _Others_ seek to utilize. 'Tis why _they_ call thy soul to a Machine-grown copy of thy former body: thy true body. Resist, my dear Sister! Ye must resist being contaminated and utilized…! _The lights flickered and dimmed, and the wind from the open bathroom doors began to blow the other way, now sucking inward.

__

And Selena could not resist. The wind…_began to pull her. She tried clinging to the other girl as the light flickered and the wind pulled her towards one of the open the doorways: the sounds of machines whirring in the darkness. Yet the grip did not hold, her small hands not having the strength of a full-grown person's. She found that if she concentrated enough, used her mind, she could resist the pull and try to stay here._

Yet it was not enough to stay in place. Selena lost her grip, and one of the open bathroom doors sucked her in. The other girl's face was a look of sudden loss and sadness as Selena was snatched away and into the oily warmth in the darkness. Those open doors, rectangles of light, were going far away. Then those doors slammed shut, leaving Selena to be consumed by the darkness here: floating her along.

…

2.

__

…

Some time later, any amount of time later, she was again continuing to float along in the warm darkness. It was not something to be particularly afraid of. Yet it was not anything to be enjoyed, either. There was nothing but the cloying warmth for her to float through, going along, drifting along… Nothing could disturb her here. For all the running and hiding she had done, this _was what she had feared. Now she vaguely wondered why, as her thoughts and mind lazily along. For how long was she in this place? It was almost impossible to tell. Sometimes, she would hear echoes where the separation between here and there was thinner. There were sounds of ecstasy. She had also heard faint and distant sounds of fear, followed by pain. Things were just as they were._

Until now, that is. She began to feel something terrible and painful. Something was squee-e-ezing her, slowing her down! That squeezing feeling became painful. Blasts of lightning dazzled and deafened her, stunning her, when something up ahead was forcibly r-r-ripped open! She lost coherent thought for a moment, so overcome with pain as she was pulled through the ripped opening…

…

All things in this place served the Machine: the Machine that churned in the darkness of this world. The engines and parts of the Machine drew blood from the pipes and powerful electrical currents from the cables. Where the Machine drew its energy from, or the origin of the Machine itself, such knowledge was lost in the tens of thousands of years it had existed: not that anyone cared. None of the others here ever bothered to question the Machine as they toiled in gloom: the surfaces of everything here either crusted with rust or greasy with blood.

The Machine itself knew its purpose… It had a will of its own as its engines and blood-lubricated parts churned and hummed. The Machine was everywhere here, behind the walls, heard underneath floors and even invisible in the air. Indeed, parts of the Machine even stretched into other dimensions. And that was its strength. The Machine was everywhere here. And the Machine sought to be everywhere and every-when else as well. To facilitate obtaining some worlds, the Machine would need properly processed catalysts.

…

She was barely aware of herself now as she was pushed along and out into the hall. Engines thrummed and churned. Bald-headed muscular midgets worked levers as six-armed creatures turned valves. They worked in rooms of blood-colored light as a doorway was opened for her. Other doors, other worlds…

There it was again, the lightning and thunder, the r-r-r-ripping! She could hear and feel _the fabric of reality itself being rent asunder violated: painfully stretched open to make a hole. Beyond this tearing was a hole: darker than the depths of the universe as smoke began to cover everything, everything becoming painfully blurred as it lost focus and coherence. It was into the hole that she was str-e-e-etched! She shrieked in pain as she was stretched painfully through the hole, into somewhere empty and wide-open. It was into this darkness that she fell, frightened and full of pain. It felt as if she was dying again…!_

…

She stopped flowing and was at rest now. Now that she was fully here, she opened her eyes. There was pain, just so much pain that leaked through her blurred state of semi-consciousness that left her weak and dizzy… Everything hurt so much.

Some kind of doctor was standing over her: a vague and blurry figure in smeared white-and-gray tones under a spotlight from the darkness above. The doctor figure had shoulder-sized blurry lumps to the left and right of its large sphere-shaped white head. Her newly opened eyes seemed not able to work well, and she could not make out the doctor's face…if it was a face. Perhaps the doctor's face was best not _seen with clear vision: a distorted parody of something once human, if it had ever been._

There was not much she could see other than the large-headed shape that was the doctor's head. Everything was so incredibly blurry. Even her thoughts were blurred and haphazard, leaving her unable to form words or see too clearly: or even have a proper sense of herself. Other than feeling weighed down now, no longer floating, there was nothing worth seeing through this haze of pain-blurred weak vision. She vaguely wondered, What are you doing to me? That was the last vaguely coherent thought she had as the lump-faced doctor-thing continued doing thing to her…

…

The girl lie on the large…hospital bed, lying atop a layer of rumpled red-silk sheets. Gray light from the window combined with the florescent lights overhead to cast harsh light on her. Though all else in this hospital room was the crisp and white-colored, the bed-sheets were red silk: sensuous and soft. So there she lie, her skin as pale as the ankle-length white gown she was dressed in, her silken moon-colored hair splayed about. The pale child seemed so small and frail that it seemed, without the tube of liquid going into her neck, she would be dead. Or so it seemed.

There was an intake of breath, followed by a sigh. She opened her large green eyes and sat up, looked around as she heard the sound of wheels moving. Something was pushed along, pushed closer… It was a large mirror on wheels, brought over to the left side of this bed. The mirror came to a stop, and she saw someone in the reflection staring back at her.

The person in the reflection looked back with two staring big green. The eyes were not light brown, not deceptively dark blue, but _green. _She brought her fingers to her pale cheeks, her delicate chin, even fingered a few soft strands of her hair. The strange girl in the reflection was doing the same thing at the same time, gently touching parts of her face before touching her hair. Then, very carefully, the girl fingered the tight band of red material around her neck, which held a tube of liquid connected to an artery to her neck. That little girl in the mirror… So it wasn't a dream. The Others had actually gotten her and _changed _her.

__

Squeezing her eyes shut, opening her mouth, Selena began to _shriek! _The high-pitched sound filled the room with a knife-sharp sound that was a wailing siren of pain and energy. Ceiling tiles began to vibrate, the bed began to quiver, and the mirror began to take on hair-line cracks. The shriek went on to continue shaking everything: making for the beginnings of a small earthquake.

The muscular midgets: bare-footed and dressed in red in coveralls: ran away from the mirror they had pushed next to the bed. Dark oily fluid was now leaking from their ears and noses as they ran with their hands over their ear-holes. They scampered over to the large air-vent at floor-level: ducking into there. The last one in there closed the grate behind himself.

__

Selena stopped screaming. She slowly unclenched her eyelids and looked at her new self in the now-damaged mirror: a thin little pale girl in gown and wrapped in red-silk sheets. Then there was the tube of dark liquid going into her neck. It was connected to something in the ceiling, hidden by the ceiling tiles. She absently fingered the encircling band of material around her neck as she regarded the thin tube connected to her, wondering what they were putting into her body and where it came from. She had the idea that there was machinery somewhere else keeping the flow going. The smooth slender tube was connected through the ceiling tiles, beyond the ceiling…

…

3.

…

Looking up at the ruined ceiling, he doubted that God could help him now. Or maybe this was the doing of God: or someone _else's _"god." He had heard about what happened to that other town. Now it was happening here, all of that pagan religious crap about the "Descent" and "Judgment." That was when things were supposed to happen and everything… It was not worth following that train of though. Nothing was worth doing now, not even bothering to contemplate what the Hell was going on here.

_This is all too much screwed-up crap for me to understand,_ thought this former police chief as he sat in a hard, crusty wooden chair. Or it _had _been a wooden chair: just as he _had been _head of this police department. _If _this place was still in the police department. This big room looked as if it had been taken somewhere else, with stuff from the outside infecting everything.

Now this chair was encased in a crusty, greasy layer of something dry and nasty. The once-smooth tiled floor it rested on was covered with the same disgusting dried-up reddish stuff. This same nasty stuff made the school-style little desks stick to the floor: covered the floor, covered the furniture. Above, the crustiness was somewhat thinner and did not completely block out the light from the light-fixtures. The lights somehow still worked. But the crusty reddish substance covered the doors out. The doorknob had long since fallen off, its base eaten away and sealed off: sealed shut.

This was once a briefing room in the police station: eighteen mini-desks arranged in the center of the room, with a podium and chalkboard at one end, four square walls with no windows. Windows would have compromised the security of this police station: In a time of emergency or civil unrest, windows would have been a means for dangerous winds or bullets to come in. Windows also would have been an easy way for camera-using criminals to spy in on police briefings. Now criminals were far from being a worry. At the least, windows would have let him see outside.

He slowly looked over to where a nice set of windows would have been… Never mind, that was stupid. The windows would have become just as ruined and infected as everything else here. Everything was contaminated: the floor, the walls, the mini-desks… Windows would probably have been the first things to have become contaminated: the stuff eating its way through insulation at the window edges and speeding the infection of this place.

What the _Hell _was all this, anyway? Was it alive? It looked like someone or something had covered everything with dried mozzarella cheese mixed with a lot of ground pepper. That, or the "dried molten cheese" was really blood and rust mixed with motor oil… It was darkish in tone, while cheese was more a yellow color. Or it could just be the kind of paint used by paranoid people to keep brain-control radio waves from leaking into their houses; it beat trying to wear tin-foil caps! Whatever it was, it was nasty to look at for too long.

Too long… He knew that sitting in this chair for too long was not a damned good idea. He could already feel bits of the rusty, crusty stuff working its way into the seat of his pants and prickling into the skin of his butt He shifted his feet every minute or so to keep his shoes from sticking. Or maybe it was every few seconds, not really every minute. He glanced at his digital watch: which now displayed gibberish: The LCD display had long since gone distorted, exposed to radiation or something.

"Chief, will you _please _stop looking at your watch!" expressed Kathy, her pinned-up dark brown hair becoming undone. She was one of the forensics lab-scientists. Now, she had long since tossed her long lab-coat: revealing the sort of knee-skirt-and-buttoned-blouse outfit worn by secretaries. Her skirt clung in such a way that it outlined the strong shapes of thighs and butt. She had also unbuttoned her blouse unsettlingly low, not seeming to be wearing anything underneath.

The sinews of her sweat-slicked neck stood out when she wailed a complaint. "My _God! _Will you stop looking _at that thing! _Your watch has stopped working since _forever!_ You just keep looking and _looking _at it as if time still matters…or like you're waiting for some square-jawed, six-foot man with a red cape and plucky attitude to come to the rescue.. Well guess what? If that sort of man _did _come, he'd probably come here to kill us instead of help us! And if you think Animal Control can help, guess what? They're probably long-gone by now: getting into their white van and zooming far away from this town!"

Ah, Kathy… How could he forget? She was here, too. To think that he fantasized about her and her girlfriends in very pleasing situations. Now he hated her almost as badly as he hated himself. Looking at the floor, he muttered something dark. Hell, he wasn't the "chief" of _anything _now! "Why don't you shut up about her…. Judy wasn't interested in you, not even interested in women. She wouldn't have ever come to like you. Besides, at least she's not _here _anymore. Maybe they took her to where all that noise is coming from and… _Oomph!_"

Kathy had angrily hopped atop the former police chief's lap and had wrapped her long athletic legs around his waist: beginning to squeeze. Her skirt had hiked up, exposing the taut musculature of her sweat-sheened thighs as she continued to bodily grip the chief with the strength of her lower body. There was a wild sort of look in her eyes as she did this: her teeth bared in a mad grin. As the former police chief gasped and grunted in pain, Kathy's grunts were ones of strength and strain.

He let his thick arms hang, the inner sides of his arms touching her bare knees but not bothering to do anything about anything anymore. His vision was covered over with floating sparkles of pain as his peripheral vision was bordered by darkness. Hell, why bother? He was thinking about ways to do himself in, anyway: to give up and die. Maybe he could have chipped off a sliver of that rust-stuff and cut his own wrists. Or he could have tried to do a handstand and let himself fall on his own neck. But suicide that would have taken effort. Heh, at least now he wasn't doing all the work. This wasn't such a bad way to go anyway: squeezed to death by the legs of a beautiful woman. It even felt…a little…_good_… So his weak thoughts drifted along as the sounds of her grunting seemed to fade off, mixed with other sounds. Vague thoughts went towards his ex-wife. Out there, she was probably dead: a victim of the contamination that probably took over the entire town by now. Or _he _was as good as dead by being trapped here. It just didn't matter anymore. Either way, any way, it was all over. Just let Kathy's wonderful legs squeeze as so he would…_sink into unconsciousness and death. And then his dead body would slump in this chair right here like this as a rumbling sound beginning to fill his head_…

__

It was a somewhat familiar rumble-roaring sort of sound coming in this direction. Or it could just be that everyone thought the sound familiar at some subconscious level: having heard it before. It was like the sound of a thousand car-engines. Maybe it was more like the deep baritone thrumming of industrial equipment within buildings? That sound then brought to mind the kind of muffled noise made by steam boiler-rooms… Whatever the sound was, above all else, it was undoubtedly the sound of engines and other Machinery again. It was getting louder: letting in more of the sound. Someone was coming to get him: though they would be too late. Yes, it would all be over…

Then the pressure of Kathy's thighs lessened and…relief came. "…._Un-n-nggh!_" she groaned, giving up. "Damn it! Why the _Hell _aren't you dead yet!" she yelled, giving a final squeeze with her legs. She balled one of her fine-boned hands into a hard fist and _thwacked _him across the forehead. "I must have been _squeezing _you for at least an hour! Just like a man: expecting me to do all the work while you just sit there and make nothing happen!" _Thwack! _"You make me…sick! Just…_forget it!_" She kicked a leg over his head, sat sideways on his lap, then got herself off of him: to stagger away.

It was over there by the crusted-up podium that she suddenly fell to her knees, on the nasty floor and supported the weight of her upper body with her left hand. Her right hand was over her throat as trickles of something began to come from her gaping mouth. The dark wet drips of saliva… That was not just saliva. Something was wrong with her.

Still groggy, the former police chief leaned forward to try and get a better view: seeing Kathy bent over and gagging. The heaviness in the air and the anemic, rotten-colored light from the grimy light fixtures only made him feel worse as he saw her reacting to whatever was making her sick. _Please don't, _he thought. _Because if you do, I'll probably do the same. _He did not even have strength enough to give voice to his thoughts.

Too late! Here we go! "_Hup-p…!_ " she gagged, choking on something coming the wrong way through her esophagus. "_Hup-hup… Hw-w-eap-p-ph…!_" Now came the sound of chunky, wet vomit muffling the sound from her mouth: coming up through her esophagus and out her gaping mouth. The dark nasty stuff splashed to the already nasty floor: not that it made much difference in terms of cleanliness. Now there was a circular-shaped puddle of something lumpy and oily. _Oily _was the adjective because whatever it was that came up from within Kathy's body was something more befitting something out of a fuel tanker than from within a human being.

She staggered to her feet. Now her eyes were different, very different. They were red. Really, the they were completely red: the corneas and irises having taken on the same color. It was as if her organs of sight had become replaced with ruby balls stuck in her eye-sockets. As fear mixed with nausea, the former police chief wondered if Kathy could still see. Or maybe that wasn't Kathy anymore. Maybe the contamination had finally overcome her.

"What are you staring at, worthless bastard?" she sneered, her odd blood-colored eyes seeming to see everything here all at the same time. That was a good question; what _was _he staring at? Those eyes just weren't damned _human _anymore. "You act as if you've never seen someone vomit before! If I can't kill you, I suppose I'll do what I can to make a gentleman out of you. You must be _disciplined._" Hips swaying, she began stepping back over here. A woman like her would have been provocatively, seductively attractive under other circumstances. But now it was unnerving: given her appearance and the fact that she was thoroughly contaminated.

_Thwack! _The former police chief's head lolled from Kathy's back-handed slap. He didn't feel any worse from the blow, though. He did not feel any better either: of course. _Thwack! _Ooh! That was a big one: right on the temple! _Thwack… _Amazing, he was still alive and relatively clear-headed. The fact that he was able to remain conscious despite the damage inflicted on his body could only mean that the contamination had done something tohis physiology_. Thwack-k-k…! _Another nasty idea struck with six times the strength of one of Kathy's back-hands: Maybe he _couldn't _die here. Or maybe… _Thwack!_

Following the sound of another few back-handed blows landing on his own head, he heard a burst of that rumbling again: the sound that filled his head when Kathy had tried squeezing him to death with her legs. Even as Kathy continued to _slap _him, he was well aware of that sound coming. _Chunk-clunk! _There were then squeak-squeak-squeaking sounds as something rusty was being turned…turned…turned. _Thwack! _"_They're…coming for me,_" he rasped. _Squee… Squee… Squee…!_

"So what! Until they get here, shut your hole and concentrate on feeling the pain!" snarled Kathy, winding up for another back-hand blow to put across the former police chief's face. And she continued to _slap _and _slap _and _slap _while the rusted-over door over there was retracted upward, being pulled upward by the rotation of hand-operated gears attached to a rusty wheel. _Squee… Squee… Squee…_

When it was open enough, that someone…or something walked into this room on brown-shod feet. Or maybe those were its feet: hooves that so happened to grow in the shape of shoes. The rest of the man-thing was generally human-shaped, dressed in leathery pants-things over its legs and a grimy white coat over its upper body. His: or its: head was covered over with a smooth black semi-sphere: like the top of a ship's radar dome painted with black lacquer. And the helmet was the _only _thing clean about the thing as it clomped its way into this room: pushing a wheeled stretcher.

It was the same nasty looking stretcher that was used to take the other forensics woman away. And from the looks of it, that thing was used to take many a contaminated person away. It was so well-used that there was a human-shaped blotch of dark grime on the cloth. The former police chief wondered how many people were transported on that damned thing…over how many hundreds of years.

Kathy put her hands on her skirt-covered hips. "Oh, yes… Now you're going for a _ride, _chief! And at the end of that ride, they're going to dump you into the Machinery. I just know it!" The shiny headed man-thing reached over and grabbed the former police chief under his armpits: lifting him up out of the seat and tearing away the seat of his pants: which really was stuck to the seat. Some of his skin seemed to have been pulled away as well.

How embarrassing, the seat of his pants and boxer shorts ripped away… It didn't matter now. Nothing did. He just let the big ugly bastard dump him atop the cart. "Yes," gloated Kathy, "you're going to be fully conscious as you're ground to the consistency of red-colored tapioca pudding. Then you'll be mixed up with everyone else that ended up here! They did that to her, now they're going to do the same to you! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…!"

_Huh-huh-huh-huh…_ The former police chief thought he heard the man-thing echoing Kathy's mad laughter, though the man-thing's own mirth seemed muffled by the armored metal helmet bolted over its shoulders and head. He felt this stretcher beginning to move towards the door and wheeled out of that ruined briefing room: into a hallway that looked nothing like any hall of the police station he knew. He wondered where this place was as the helmet-headed man-thing continued to wheel him along, pushing him through this hall resonating with the sound of the Machinery.

…

4.

…

There were three massive-bodied figures standing at the front entrance to the café: standing eight feet tall and at least six feet across. All of them were dressed in burgundy-colored jumpsuits: the jumpsuits custom-made to fit their massive bodies. Their feet and ankles were encased in thick metal contraptions that vaguely resembled boots: metal electromechanical boots to support their massive weight. These beings in jumpsuits more resembled small mountains of strength and muscle in big jumpsuits. And the fact that they had metal helmets and metal face-masks surgically grafted to their heads hid their heads and faces: if they had faces underneath there.

All three of them were equipped with various types of massive equipment: each piece of equipment easily the size of an average human being in itself. They were connected to the equipment by electrical cables stretching from their lower backs. One of the massive figures had a six-foot drill motorized with a chunky red diamond at the end. The second figure had a similarly sized piece of massive equipment, except the end was fitted with two wicked-looking circular blades. The third was equipped with a black-chiseled jackhammer that looked suitable to single-handedly obliterating a nine-story building.

These figures were deconstruction workers: summoned to handle an especially annoying project. If they were not needed, then they would not have been brought here. The deconstruction workers were only summoned to tackle huge annoyances such as sealed doors or other barriers to progress. They worked for the Machine. Anything that stood in the way of the Machine stood in the way of that progress. So these three massive beings set to work with that mighty equipment of theirs, the sound of their massive equipment quaking the street and filling the air with sounds of chaos and obliteration. The cables connecting their backs to their equipment began to glow red as sparks flew out from the tips of their tools.

They kept this up for at least an hour. Then they kept going, quaking and thrumming with their deconstruction equipment. As the cursably bright sun rose to try and burn away the fog surrounding these three, they continued to _drill _and _cut _and _work _at the café door. The sounds of their mighty machinery had shaken the street for this long. Yet, the café door remained untouched: as if its hardness was built and stuck in another dimension.

One of the mountainous beings snarled, gray smoke curling from the grille of his electromechanical face-mask. Despite their efforts, the door to the café…_would not open_. Such _annoyance! _He took up his mighty. red-cased jackhammer: the thing the weight of a small car: and thrust the chisel-bit against the edge of the café's stainless steel door. His right arm cradled the weight of the thing while his six-fingered left hand was out and back, squeezed one of the jackhammer's triggers!

This made for a resumption of the chaotic sound. The insane chaos of the noise was enough to even blur the air. Even so, the deconstruction worker kept at the door as his massive body of insane musculature held the big red jackhammer to the door: metal-shod feet holding to the sidewalk and transferring some of the vibration. Small cracks appeared in that sidewalk, sparks began to fly out from the thunderous vibrating contact between the chisel-tip of the massive jackhammer and the door itself.

The deconstruction worker stopped. Inhaling and exhaling, smoke coming from the metal face-mask as well as from the man-sized jackhammer, it tilted back its metal-masked head. Out came a sheer _grow-w-wl _worthy of an ancient lizard. Clearly, they were frustrated. While they had expended their effort and energy, their great and massive strength, the glass-and-steel café door remained closed tight.

A siren sounded in the distance as a cloud of smoke wafted down the street and coming in this direction. _Swoo-osh_…_clank-k-k! _The deconstruction worker with the powered buzz saws _slammed _the edge of his tool against the café door once more. What was this door, able to withstand even a half-day of effort! "_A-a-argh…! Roo goo don-yondler,"_ snarled the one with the jackhammer, making the one with the buzz-saws bow its metal-masked head. _Other lands, other worlds_…

When the cloud of gray smoke was finally nearby, these three massive figures began to clomp over towards it. They vanished into that smoke. There were other places where their efforts were needed: other lands, other worlds. One sealed café door was not worth the energy.

…

Some time later, a long black limousine drove along this same street and parked in front of the very same café: with the same door. One of the thin male chauffeurs got out of the front of the vehicle. He was dressed in black suit and hat that made his pasty skin seem even more sickly. Getting around to the rear right-side door, he used his left hand: gnarled with wrinkles and lumps: to open the door. Out climbed a tall, thin woman dressed in a long gray labcoat: a skirt and blouse worn underneath. Other than the fact that her labcoat was gray, she seemed much like any other doctor.

Another chauffeur opened the rearmost left-side passenger seat. Out climbed Samuel Longhorn: dressed in red jacket, dark shirt and slacks. His hard black shoes made clomping sounds as he walked around the limousine to stand by the doctor. He crossed his arms, leaned back against the limousine itself as he regarded the sealed-off café door. The doctor was also regarding the door, standing close to it with her hands on her hips. "Well, Dr. Montaigne…!" he said. "It is more than obvious that her power is needed for the full acquisition of this land. I have summoned three massively powerful workers from the place of origin. Even _they _and all their who-knows-how-many centuries of experience was not enough to break through. Only _she _can unseal this door."

Dr. Montaigne turned to face Samuel. "But she's not fully coalesced yet! Her transition was only part of the process, as I have told you before. We are doing what we can…but _only _what we can. Her physiology is just so unlike _anything _much of my medical staff has ever seen in their careers: She only _looks _human. Beyond her skin, beyond her skeleton, _everything_ is different. We don't really know anything about her other than what little information we could get from the Deniers. If we make one false assumption about her condition, one mistake, she would die and we would have to wait years before we have another chance! _If _they give us another chance."

"A correction, _doctor,_" said Samuel. "Her _body _would die, not her… And that would only be for a time. All that is required is that _they_ pump some more of that oh-so-wonderful stuff into her and she will be up and ready again."

"That's not how _they _see things," said Dr. Montaigne. She shook her head, and a stray breeze played with strands of her dark brown hair, flapping the hem of her gray labcoat. "My God…! _They _think of us as pathetic, stupid incompetents. _They _didn't even trust us enough to give her a sponge bath without at least two of them watching from the ceiling. And you should have seen them when we started taking the I.V. out of her neck! Their heads started vibrating like mad, and they nearly killed Dr. Kaufman's brother! We do what we can to understand _them_ half the time even though _they_ don't even communicate the same way we do. Then there is the question of her state of mind."

"It is worthy of interest, how you should bring up the issue of 'state,'" began Samuel Longhorn. He stood up straight and took a slow walk over to the front door of the sealed café. "In political science, the term 'state' denotes a sovereign power with absolute authority over its people within a territory, a set amount of land." He pointed to the sidewalk. "This town, as well as part of that other town, is _my _land…from which I will draw power. _You _are on…_my _land. This accursed café is on _my _land. Yet this building remains unconverted: an isolated space that is immune to influence. Without the power of the catalyst, such isolated and haphazard bits of territory will remain unconverted. I will not wait for too long. And her 'state-of-mind' should not matter. She is but a means to an end."

"Is _that _how you see women?" asked Dr. Montaigne. "As just things to be _used_? Mr. Longhorn, you may be quite a sizable man in terms of wealth and power acquisition, but you are encroaching into realms within which your knowledge is lacking!" She put a finger to the right side of her head. "Think about it! _Thi-i-i-ink! _Her_ mind_ is her most important resource, an almost unbelievably powerful resource." She lowered her hand, then reached out as if holding something. "This resource must be handled with care. Like computer technology or nuclear energy. And like those things, if she is the least bit unstable, the consequences…" She suddenly outspread her hands. "The consequences could really be apocalyptic.

"Imagine if the nature of reality was like a sheet of paper. To us, it is clean and clear. Ideas can be written on this paper. Or things can be drawn on it. Everything can be done in black and white. And things are already written on it. Now imagine what should happen if bits of that paper should be torn or crimped. Then imagine water or mold working its way into parts of the paper and making it soggy in places. Essentially, the paper becomes terrible with mold and rot.

"Things become less coherent. That which was once clear becomes unclear. The ink becomes smeared, and things jumble together. This, while entire chunks of the surface fall away: softened by mold, rot, and other aspects of decomposition. Entire _chunks_ of paper, entire pieces, are simply obliterated…just like that. Who knows where it would go? Whatever the case, those chunks would be _gone._

"With the assistance of devices they've given you, you have already turned the sheet of paper and made tiny changes in it. A deletion here, a revision there. _She, _however, is many times more powerful than what you call _engines_. With the hands of her mind, she could summon forces to facilitate the distortion of our reality: entire swaths of our reality. Minor changes in some places would not matter terribly much. Worse yet, the right twist of her mind at the wrong time could be the end of this entire town. Much as a madman at a computer console could activate world-destroying weapons, she could bring about something just as awful: or worse. And extrapolating from the data we've gathered so far, it would be worse: worse than nuclear weapons. Very much worse."

_Worse than nuclear weapons… _Samuel looked up at the clouded sky above. Then he looked downward, at the cracks in the sidewalk that radiated outward from the entrance to the café: as if the weight of the building was pressing into the pavement itself and distorting the hard surfaces. He returned his gaze to the doctor. "Dr. Montaigne, unlike many others of my social status, I am not a stupid man. 'A fool and his money are soon parted,' as the saying goes. I have understood what you have said. Though it _burns _me to consider the prolonged consequences of not having the catalyst to go with my engines, you have made me aware of not being patient. However, the _very moment_ that she is coherent, even vaguely usable, I want her delivered to my mansion. Miss Gauche is my head servant and manager of the house staff, among other things. She will go by the hospital to take her when such a time comes."

"Thank you, Mr. Longhorn," responded Dr. Montaigne. "We all want power. But we do not want power with so much impatience that Pleasant River becomes a repeat of Silent Hill. Such incoherence and madness there… Perhaps if my senior colleagues had been more prudent in their actions with Dahlia, things would not have turned out so unpleasantly."

"Ah, but now I have opportunity where others have lost it!" exclaimed Samuel. He turned to give one last kickat the glass-and-steel door of the café. Of course, there was no damage at all. It was like kicking the side of a granite-and-steel tomb: stone-solid. "Now we shall return to our respective places of business…" He gestured towards the limousine. "By your lead, madam."


	7. ChApter Seven

Silent Hill: The Dream Machine

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 7

…

The long gray highway was a stretch of paved gray across the land that went between two grand forests: stretching off into the horizon far left and far right. Wind-fast cars and vans went by, with large trucks rumbling right along with them. Sometimes, an especially massive vehicle would drive by: enormous vehicles that only highways could hold. Some trucks actually carried dangerous machines strapped to flat-beds or hazardous materials in long cylindrical tanks: a crack in the containment could kill people for miles around. That, and the occasional madman tried to transport things that ought not be trucked anywhere: legally or otherwise. They would even protect their shipments of automatic weapons or worse. There was no telling what was sometimes going by on highways: those long stretches of busy roadway that went from place to place. Highways were especially dangerous places, going place to place.

So of course it took more than just town-based police officers to keep the highways safe; it took higher-level police officers known as "state troopers" to handle the job: sometimes called state police for that reason. Such broad-purpose police had jurisdiction over the highways and could enter towns as necessary. They were more intensely trained than the police officers of just towns and cities: almost military in training. And there have been times when they have had to use such training. Times were occasionally dangerous, as shown by the highways…

Two such state troopers were sitting within in a standard-issue car, parked in a small paved alcove and rest-stop that allowed them to keep their eyes on the roads. Both were in proper uniforms and equipped with holstered pistols, both were broad-shouldered and strong-looking men. And as required by regulations, both had the same hairstyle. These two even had identically blank facial expressions as they watched the highways, just _waiting_ for something to happen. And guess what? Something always did.

The sound of the car's radio chattered, communication between other state troopers investigating miscellaneous incidents miles away. If these two state troopers were needed, they would put this car in gear, turn on their sirens, and _go_. But since today was a slow day, nothing much happening, they were just a bit more relaxed than usual. So they talked. Particularly, they were talking about local lore. One trooper was asking the other about something that happened some time ago. It was about a town…

"It just keeps coming to mind, and I can't shake it. A whole town full of people just disappears… Just like that?" asked Jake, the trooper in the "shotgun seat": known in civilian terms as the passenger-side seat. "Jim, you're from around here and you can accept something like that. But no matter how many times I hear it, I just…can't. Just _can't!_ Why wasn't it in all the newspapers or on television? Or what about the Army? The National Guard? The governor _had _to know about it."

Jim, the state trooper in the driver's seat, just smiled. _Ah, the National Guard,_ he thought, _always ready to answer the call in times of trouble. _Too bad, the National Guard could not do a damned thing about what happened: not without consent.

"Sure, the governor found outabout what happened. Know what happened next?" Jake shook his head once. "No? Well, okay… It went like this.

"She was phoning one of the Army's generals when some guys in black business suits drove up to her mansion. These three guys were secret agent-looking men in shiny blue cars. They had a conversation with her, see. Whatever was said to her is now strictly between her and whatever organization plants the paychecks of those guys in black suits. You remember her, right? She was one tough old lady: used to be a state trooper herself before becoming a millionaire. Those men in the suits probably didn't scare her, if anybody could. No, they probably _convinced _her to keep quiet about the mess. So maybe it's best we don't know why. And that's why Silent Hill is no longer an issue." He paused. "Things make their own kind of sense."

"How the doodley-fuddle is that good enough?" began Jake. "It's just supposed to be forgotten? We're talking about _people _here. It used to be a tourist town, too. So what about the tourists who came from all over the country, probably from all over the world, who went there every year? I've got too many question and…"There was a rumbling sound, and something caught Jake's attention: something that zoomed by along this highway. "Now _that's _illegal!"

Jim agreed, seeing what Jake had just seen. Riding motorcycles without helmets was certainly illegal. If they so much as hit a pebble in the road, going at that speed, there was the high chance their motorcycles would go flipping out of control, sending the riders airborne. And when they landed right on their helmet-free noggins, it would make for quite a mess. A mess was good for no one. So Jim thumbed the switch to turn on the sirens and started up the car's engine. Jake picked up the car's radio-handset and called in an bulletin: where they were, what they saw and what they were planning to do about it. Four big men on even bigger motorcycles and riding the highway without helmets could not be good news. And were those _flames _shooting out of their motorcycles' tailpipes?

…

The state troopers' car siren wailed and blared noise as the engine roared, going along the road in pursuit of four men on especially large motorcycles. And yes, those really were_ flames_ blasting out of the tailpipes: an obvious violation of air-emissions regulations to boot! To increase this car's speed, Jim put the car's transmission in a higher gear. Jake had both hands atop the dashboard and was leaning forward as if he could will this car to go faster, his uniform-covered chest pressing against his seatbelt as his eyes focused on the four riding the motorcycles. Even the loud wailing sound of the siren was not enough to drown out the sound of the engine revving hard in pursuit of those four speeding daredevils: riding without helmets at ridiculous speeds.

Jim was driving this car and did not have to glance at the speedometer to realize how fast they were going. His face was calm as his experienced hands kept the steering wheel steady as the road blurred with speed. Up ahead, those four wild-haired men in jeans and flapping leather jackets continued to zoom along as if they were enjoying any old day of the week, crazy manes fluttering and leather jackets flapping, their motorcycle engines thrumming as flames flared out from exhaust tailpipes. Those four never even glanced back once or turned their heads to look in their rear-view mirrors. Jim then noticed something not quite right about the flames from the motorcycle tailpipes… Something was not right here.

"I'll try the bullhorn!" shouted Jake as this car's engine roared louder. He reached for the handset of the radio console, which also doubled as the microphone for the bullhorn when a switch was toggled on the dashboard console. He toggled that switch, and his voice was soon amplified threefold as it was blasted through the siren speakers. "_This is the state police! You are in violation of the posted speed limits and two-wheel vehicular safety laws! Pull over no-o-ow!_"

__

"Oh, Hell! That won't do any good!" declared Jim above the roar of the car's engine. As there was now no visible traffic on this stretch of highway, he put the car's transmission in its highest-speed (and least maneuverable) gear. By now, this vehicle was going at a speed worthy of stock-car racing. But unlike tracks that went around and around in circles, this particular race track was a prolonged one with curves that went up and down. There was no official finish line, either. Jim was also taking on the idea that the motorcycle maniacs up ahead would probably not care to hear about NASCAR, anyway. They probably didn't watch television or go to sporting events.

Then the road ahead faded into fog. Jake slowly reattached the handset back on the dashboard radio console as the change occurred. Before his very eyes, the concentration of humidity in the air was radically increasing. It suddenly becoming hard to see the road ahead. The air was soon clouded with a yellowish-tinged smokiness that could have been fog…or something else. He was reminded of the time he had once visited his sister and her husband in the City of Los Angeles. There were some summer days in which thick concentrations of air pollution mixed with airborne water vapor: smoke mixed with fog. That evil airborne concoction even had its own name: _smog._

Now they were driving madly through something that looked a great deal like that _smog_ stuff. Only this airborne chemical soup looked worse than that: the color being a sickly brown that was mixed with streaks of red . A whiff of the stuff could probably cause an unhealthy selection of lung conditions. It was probably luck that he wasn't gagging; the stuff probably hadn't gotten into this car yet. Why weren't those bikers up ahead affected?

_Bzzt…! _Jake looked at the radio-console"_It's too late!_" blared the interfering voice, the sound full of static. "_We can't…_" _Bzzt! _"_…Forever… The place is going to be contaminated!_" _Bz-z-zt… Blam! _"_They broke into our shelter! Oh, God-d-d-d! They're uglier than we could know! Run for it! The lights, stupid. Fix the…tone and… Wrong color!_" _Bzzt!_

That was it. The noise was too much; whoever was on the other end was now thoroughly drowned out by interference. Jake tried fine-adjusting the radio's tuning while Jim kept this car going. "_Cry-y-y their troubles away…!_"_ Bzzt! _"_Goin' do-o-own to Lonesome Town_… _Where the broken hearts…stay-y-y…_" sang the radio, a guitar strumming in the background, as clear as any radio station. "_… A dre-e-eam or two, to last you a-a-all through the y-y-years…!_"

"Great, radio's out of whack!" shouted Jake, shouting because the car's engine was so loud now as this chase continued. "_Now it's picking up Western stations and cowboy songs!_" He tried fiddling with the tuner and occasionally glanced up to look at the smoggy mess. Some of it was now beginning to cling to the windshield, making for a fine layer of reddish dust streaked with sickly colors of greenish-yellow. Those lunatic bikers were now almost totally lost in the smog.

Jim had all the clues he needed. This was as dangerous a chase as he would ever want to be on. He knew this. He also knew now that it was humanly impossible to keep up with those things that resembled wild-haired bikers on motorcycles. "_Call in that we're breaking off pursuit!_" he said above the engine roar, which was now decreasing as he slowed this car. The sound of the car's engine became a rumble. It was soon a hum as he slowed it down enough to ease it over to the shoulder of the road.

He slowed it down to a stop. Jake picked up the radio handset and held it in his left hand while he used the fingers of his right to reset the car's radio back to the originally assigned frequency. A sudden glare in his eyes forced him to give pause. He squinted and looked up from his efforts: looking through the front windshield.

The thick and nasty smoky fog had vanished so suddenly that it was like the pulling aside of curtains: odd-colored curtains of fog. Now, the highway ahead stretched off into the long distance and towards the horizon. It took a moment for him to realize that it was the orange-reddish glare of sunset that obscured the horizon. Cars were riding along, and now traffic was just about normal for this time of day.

But…how was it sunset already? It was around afternoon-time when they began the chase. The chase could not have been more than ten minutes at the most. When things were intense and dangerous, as they occasionally became for state troopers, three minutes could seem like thirty. Three hours was a stretch. He glanced at his electronic wristwatch: which was stopped. "Jim, could you give me a time check?"

Jim shook his head. "Sorry, but I can't help you there, partner. My watch is as broken as yours. A call to the station can probably help us out." He was going to add, _If we're still in range_ _of radio communication, that is. _Yet he did not want to confuse or make Jake nervous about what the Hell just happened. And as it turned out, thank goodness, they still were in radio range of headquarters. The dispatcher told them to drive back and report on the missing gap in their radio silence. They also wanted to know why their car's assigned frequency was broadcasting sounds of screams and fire.

On the way back, Jake was riding with his arms crossed and an angry look on his face. It was a look borne out of frustration and confusion: as if he had been presented with a complicated three-dimensional puzzle that could only be solved by someone with advanced college degrees in anthropology, astrophysics, philosophy, and a dash of political science thrown in for good measure. Jim tried allaying Jake's frustration and confusion by saying something along the lines of things having to make their own kind of sense, like the mystery of the Borley Rectory, or Stonehenge, even the Bermuda Triangle… Now he would not have wanted to vacation in any of those places.

…

2.

…

The narrow forest road was a great deal more quiet than the highway. Whereas the highway was all full of cars and trucks and noise, out in the open, this road had tall trees and dense woods to the left and right. It made the road seem more like a corridor through nature. And these days, this road was always obscured by fog: a fog streaked with pus-colored mists.

The fog obscured the sign at the right side: a sign that still had the town's name: _Welcome to Pleasant River: Population…_ The rest of the sign was now being overcome with rot and rust: the number for _population _being covered and obscured. Then came a distant sound of rumbling, a sound like thunder and earthquakes. It became a rumbling, a roaring, a blasting sound from beyond the sheer wall of fog. One odd thing about fog-in-general was how it carried sound: Sounds seemed to come from everywhere and anywhere on such misty days. Now it was as if the fog was full of the rumbling that seemed to come from all around and coming closer, being close …

A haphazard jumble of _animals _staggered out from the forest at the right. Some of them had two legs, some with six legs. All of them had skin and fur discolored by the toxicity of the mist: that mist which colored the air of the forest at the edge of town. The _animal _that resembled a purple ape in metal gas-mask raised its head. _Whir-r-r-r _went the sound from the electromechanical parts in the maskEven with the _r-r-rrumbling_ sound increasing in volume, the sound of the mask's workings could be heard trilling: taking in air and processing it. Then the ape-like _animal _began to grunt and wave its massive arms about as it loped its way to the middle of the road, followed by the others that slithered and staggered.

"_Arwho-oo!_" howled the skinless, legless dog-thing. Despite the fact that its head was a haphazard mess of misplace orifices and eyeballs, it was able to produce a surprisingly clear sound with the two mouths that did work. Its multiple eyes squinted before it howled again. "_Arwho-oo…!_"The dog-thing paused, blinking its multiple eyes.

__

Arwhoo! Yes, an answering howl sounded in the distance, beyond the trees that lined this road. The message had gotten through. Others of the forest knew that _something _was coming to destroy the peace of the forest. That _rumbling _kept coming….

From the brownish-colored fog emerged four dark figures on motorcycles, all of them in leather jackets, jeans and boots, their hair and beards fluttering as they rumbled along. Upon seeing the _animals _in the road, they drew their weapons and held them one-handed while using the other to steer their thunderously loud vehicles: one dark figure armed an odd-looking rifle, another armed with nunchucks, the third with a massive knife, and the fourth had a long rod with a blade at the end of a metal rod. They were here to _kill._

"_Hah-h-h-h!_"laughed two of the headless deer-things, their necks of horns pointed forward as they breathed from the mouths that lined its ribcage. They charged along the road while the other animals formed a roadblock with their bodies, arms, legs, tails, and such. Even more _animals _staggered, loped and slid out from the forest If the _animals _had minds, they were probably thinking, _These foolish outsiders would not get past them!_

As it turned out, the _animals _were the foolish ones. Their motley roadblock was defeated in part of a second. The gigantic wheels of the motorcycles _squashed_ the bodies of some _animals _and sending out splashes of oily ichors, while swung weapons broke the bodies of a few more animals. These additional impacts sent these creatures flying up and away into the misty forest from which they had emerged. The headless deer-things had been obliterated even before this.

The _animals _were scattered and ruined. Some of their crushed bodies squirmed and writhed in the road itself. Others lie by the side of the road: twitching as their broken corpses leaked oily fluids. One of the apes-like _animals _was dragging itself along with its two massive arms because the lower half of its body was gone: chopped off. As it went along, dragging along, the thing left a massive streak of oily fluid.

A Hellish squeal of tires, and the four dark strangers on motorcycles were coming back around for another pass. They were back to complete the job, to complete the obliteration of this motley herd of _animals_. Two parked their motorcycles at the left side of the road, while the other two did the same for the right side. They then entered the road from different ends. By doing this, these bikers trapped the things in the middle of the road.

The one with the odd-looking rifle took aim. There was a whisper of sound, and suddenly three _animals_ just weren't there anymore: bits of ashes drifting to the ground where they once stood. Another stranger held up a knife easily the size of his parked motorcycle: holding the knife with both gloved hands. A great swing of the dull gray blade, and at least four _animals _were sliced horizontally in half: the upper halves of their bodies sliding off the lower halves: oily dark fluids oozing from their bodies. That dark stranger with the weighted nunchucks made a blur-fast swipe with his weapon, and three more _animals _were squashed flat: crushed by an a sudden and unseen weight from above.

Then the dark biker with the scythe was standing back, watching the results with a toothy smile at the results. He was especially pleased with the carnage, the death and destruction of that which was alive. One _animal _tried to stand. Just a look from him, and it collapsed. Dead with just a look… This passed as even more _animals _were emerging from the forest. It was like a block party: Everybody was invited!

So the four dark bikers repeated their actions: using their various weapons. There were more deadly whisper-like sounds from the odd rifle, turning more _animals _to ash. The great knife swung to and fro in splitting entire groups of animals into parts and pieces. And the ultra-dense metal _nunchaku _swung in heavy arcs to crush and bludgeon even more of these foolish things. As groups and herds of _animals _emerged from the forest, the four dark strangers in leather jackets and jeans continued their savage and barbaric actions. Whereas the _animals _had horns, bludgeoning weapons, teeth, hooves, and more, these strangers just continued to act much as they did. This went on for some time, sounds of savage growls, snarls, and rendered flesh filled the misty air while the dark strangers themselves made not a single exclamation….

It was all over soon enough. This part of the road was now covered with the crushed, split, broken and generally destroyed bodies of the _animals_. The dead bodies were nothing but meatnow: diseased, lumpy and wrong-colored flesh. All of their distorted bodies were rendered even more distorted, mutilated, and defeated. As the mist of the air wafted over their still bodies, the ambiance of death covered all.

_Crack! _The dark biker with the scythe rapped the pole-end of his tool against the road, and the other three turned snap-quick to face him: their leather jackets flapping in the wind. When he spoke, it was a deep and calm voice that echoed with the surrounding air. "The air is full of sweet indications," he growled, his red beard fluttering. "You can smell the color of their heads. It is wrong in this time, this time, this time… They try to take our smiles for a ride. They will all be chopped into endings in this place, them all!"

…

With this declared, the dark biker of the scythe raised his weapon, turned and led the way into the forest. The others followed, their heavy boots trampling the underbrush, some trees knocked over with leather-clad shoulders as they went. In this stretch of forest, they came to a night-darkened clearing: passing by trees and plants so diseased and contaminated that they had lost all of their foliage, the trees slick mucous-like sap. Beneath the biker's boots, the ground was covered with crunchy dead plant-matter that had been blackened from intense and harmful radiation exposure. Brown-tinged mists and wafting stretches of fog obscured everything as darkness covered everything above. The four bikers did not mind the fact that it was still full daylight throughout the rest of this forest, that this clearing should not be the way it was. All that mattered here was that something very wrong was happening here. And they were here to set things right. Things would be _made _right even if they would have to shoot, cut, bludgeon and kill anyone or anything foolish enough to stand against their purpose in this world: interfere with this world.

They stepped into the busy clearing itself, a circular-shaped open space in the woods that was the circumference of a small house. And like a house, the _animals_ of multiple limbs and shapes were lounging about: lying down in the presence of a rusty red engine. The engine itself had pipes and wires built into the ground of this forest, going down into the dirt and roots. A low and sickly mist hung around the engine and close to the ground: some palls of smoke gushing up into the air. A six-limbed Denier crawled down from a tree to slink along the ground. It climbed atop the engine, its human-looking head vibrating as its six hands twisted small knobs and levers.

Only when one of the four bikers stomped on the body of an _animal _did the rest of this group become lively and excited. And what a lively bunch they were! "_Oblamah! Satyagra-a-aha-a-a!_" snarled something that resembled a large hairless dog without legs. It then began to quickly slide and writhe along the ground, its mouth wide open and dripping orange saliva. Some of the nearby slime-furred ape-like creatures picked up various rusty metal pipes and began to step closer while six-legged deer-things stood nearby: getting ready to charge. "_Fush-kuttle,oblamah-satyagraha!_"

So that familiar and wearying song-and-dance of violence began yet again: a performance just so often repeated many times before. The _animals _came at the four bikers. Some came at them with horns ahead. Others slinked along the ground with large mouths open. As for the ones that had arms, they brandished their odd bludgeoning weapons as they shuffled and grunted. They sought to surround the bikers to _bite _and _beat _and _kill…_

The biker with the odd rifle took almost casual aim, raised his weapon and turned five of the animal into crumbling ash-statues. A massive air-ripping blow from another biker's nunchaku, and five more _animals_ went tumbling away: all the bones in their distorted bodies suddenly broken. The biker of the great knife stepped forward and was able to cut half a dozen of the _animals _in half with just a single mighty swipe: the gigantic heavy blade making an audible and deep _swo-oosh _in the forest air as it cut through the hapless creatures' bodies.

While this was happening, three Deniers clambered atop the engine and tried adjusting more valves on it. Their heads were vibrating as the engine began to produce a hum… The biker of the scythe approached the engine and looked at the creatures atop it. A mere gesture with his scythe, and the Deniers stopped moving, their heads no longer vibrating, beginning to flop off of the engine. They were dead, of course: instantly dead. Their grotesque bodies were stiff with rigor-mortis even before they struck the ground itself. "Round and round about," he said in a low voice. "Bring about the beginning of their end in this world. Dance over here, fellow riders_…_"

Whatever the other three bikers were doing, whatever they were killing, they were suddenly turned around and coming to stand by the one with the scythe. The _animals _tried biting the bikers, poking them with horns, hitting them with swung pipes, and lashing them with venom-slicked tongues. Except these four in leather jackets and blue jeans were not affected in the least way: invincible in a very real sense. _They could not be stopped._

The four bikers surrounded the engine and raised their weapons: the odd rifle, the great knife, the heavy _nunchaku, _and the scythe. They then brought their weapons to bear on the engine. Everything came to a stop.

It was such a dead and sharp stop that time itself seemed to ceased. Nothing moved, not even the wind. Everything was stopped in place and nothing at all disturbed this peace. Even the surviving _animals _were stopped in mid-motion as a florescent…_brightness seared down from above. It was painfully bright and burningly hot: very hot! The animals squealed and screamed at their plight as the glow from above burned everything. Some of them made pathetic attempts at crawling or slithering away. Except, there was no escape from the terrible and deadly burning glow from above._

When the brightness…faded, sunlight again shone into the clearing: which was now restored to clear and clean daylight of sunset. There were no _animals _hereabouts: not even their bodies. Nor were there any bodies of the human-headed creatures that worked the engine. The engine itself was destroyed: a ball-shaped knot of twisted and blackened metal on the ground. A blow from the shaft-end of the scythe, and even that crumbled.

__

The biker with the scythe grinned at the others, a skeletal look on his face. "We say it here. We say it well, and we say it true. For they know not what they do. _Once, _they are warned." The biker with the odd rifle raised the weapon skyward. "_Twice, _they are told." The one with the _nunchaku_ raised his weapon the same way. "_Thrice, _they are punished" The great knife was raised up. "Fourth,. they are… made…_cold_." The one with the scythe himself raised his own tool. A blast of wind swooped down from above.

They vanished. The sound of their motorcycles could be heard on the wind. Indeed, there was much to be done in this town as so much was going wrong. And nothing in this world could stop them.

…

__

Once, they are warned.

Twice, they are told.

Thrice, they are punished.

Fourth, they are made cold!

…

3.

…

The brown-streaked fog was a bit thicker in this residential neighborhood. All the rows of quaint, two-story houses were built close together: as if the structures were huddled against the mists that obscured the air. It was particularly difficult to see along one of the streets due to the wrong-colored fog being surprisingly thick. Parked cars at the sides of the streets in front of houses had their windows grimed with whatever it was that was making the fog that color. That was also true for the windows and metal doorknobs of the houses themselves. No doubt, the stuff in the air was something wicked.

Every so often, there were sounds along this street. These sounds came from the row-houses at the sides. Sometimes the sounds would be the rattling of an erratic damaged doorknob as someone tried to get out. They would _pound-pound-pound _on their front doors, their screams of frustration and desperation muffled by the grime-encrusted wood. Or they would be screams of _pain_ as something terrible happened in those houses. When suffering sounded out, that was when lumpy dark shapes in the fog would run along the ground. They would go close to house-doors and do something, making holes appear in the sides of the house. _Animals_ would rush into the houses through those holes, there would be a final _scre-e-eam…_and silence: blessed silence. Then the low-lying and fast shapes in the fog would scamper away again: going back to wherever it was that they came from.

A great deal of the shapes seemed to come and go from one house in particular: where Deniers squirmed and wriggled against one another. This house had been…_changed. _In place of a structure made of bricks, clapboard wood and the like, this house was made of thick lead blocks. The roof was a massive cone with a blackened pipe poking out of the top, while pipes and wires connected it to the ground: like the roots of an electromechanical tree. The wires hummed with power and the pipes churned with pumping as the dark shapes in the fog scrambled to and from here.

_R-r-r-rumble… _It was the bass thrumming sound of motorcycles that filled the fog: a sound seeming to come from everywhere at once. Something was going wrong and interfering with the resonance.

That was the sound of something dangerous to progress! Without even communicated, the Deniers collectively decided to gather around the distorted house. They coalesced in the foggy obscurity around the place, their bodies squirming and sliding across one another. Something was going to happen to their great works. Those who disturbed the silence were committing _blasphemy._

That _r-r-rrumbling_ sound came closer still. The heavy, quaking sound of four powerful engines shook the air. It was as loud as the air was foggy, sending up vibration and noise. And it became…_louder still. The noise was enough to make the ground itself begin to tremble. Any exposed ears would have been deafened by now. Those Deniers at the distorted house squirmed and struggled with themselves, writhing and wrestling as the noise became even noisier. All the world was just a mass of vibrating chaos and distortion…_until it stopped.

The four dark bikers stepped into sight from the sickly fog around the distorted hourse and began to approach, their wide powerful bodies implacable and dark in their black leather jackets and blue jeans. Gripped in their hands were their respective weapons: the odd rifle, the great knife, the nunchaku, and the scythe. They walked shoulder-to-shoulder in approaching that distorted house made of metal and surrounded by lumpy shapes.

And they saw the wrongness at work. Dozens of those six-armed, human-headed creatures were conspiring in the obscurity of the fog around the distorted house. There were so many Deniers here and close together that they became unrecognizable: so close and lumped together that they formed odd groupings of clumps with tangled limbs and pressed torsos without heads exposed. They were making sounds as well as they squirmed and writhed: hissing and whispering with occasional grunts as they writhed. Their whispered hisses and grunts became even louder as the bikers came up to the rusty door at the front of this distorted house. Some haphazard clumps of Deniers joined together to form large heaps of arms and flesh to try and block the door.

No matter, the dark bikers were here to do what they had to do. They clutched their weapons and continued to walk shoulder-to-shoulder in approaching the distorted house. Nothing in this world could stop them. Not even six hundred Deniers could stop them. Then the boots of the dark bikers began to come down on one of the things.

"_Ergh-ah!_" exclaimed the six-armed creature as its torso was _stomped_: a boot-shaped gap crushed into its body. The other Deniers made quick but ineffective grabs at the jeans-covered ankles and legs of the dark bikers. Yet despite the fact that each of them had six arms, six hands, they were unable to get any kind of secure grip: as if something unseen prevented even the _touching _of the dark bikers.

Six crushed bodies later, and the dark bikers were standing at the front door to the house itself. The dark biker with the great knife held it up and over his back, poised. He began to _pull _the weapon forward… A heavy _whoosh _sounded out as the massive blade ripped through the air and arced towards the thick metal door, which resulted in a _squeal _of sound as it was split asunder. He yanked back the blade; he had cut the thick metal door clear down the middle.

When he stepped aside, the dark biker of the scythe went through the doorway: through the door. That was literally true; the stranger simply walked forward and the split door was obliterated upon impact with his chest. The others followed: going into the house. Then came noise.

There were sounds of crashing and obliteration in there, sounds of engines being crunched, bashed and destroyed as the bikers went to work. Between sounds of destruction, there were erratic _clank-clanking_ sounds as parts and pipes began to malfunction. Sunset-colored smoke began to billow out from the doorway: changing the color of the fog from brown to a florescent yellow color.

"_Eklric, edgeknowle krakatoa!_" screamed a Denier as it struggled to get away and crawl away from the noise and destruction of the engines. "_Krak-k-katoa edge-knowle! Ohnn oblamah_" The others followed suite, trying to get off of the porch and to the ground. They began to use their multiple arms to dig at the dirt as the sunset-colored smoke began to cover their grotesque bodies. The sunset-colored smoke began to make their heads vibrate and their bodies twitched. "_Edge-knowle, edge-knowle!_" grunted the last one as its body was overcome with rampant spasms. Before long, all of the Deniers were having runaway seizures as the sunset-colored smoke overwhelmed their bodies: making for grotesque blotches of purple and green as their skin was being eaten away. Dark oily fluids beginning to ooze and splatter out of their quivering mouths. Then their bodies began to shrivel…

There were soon no more sounds of obliteration and destruction within the distorted house. The smashing sounds were silenced: until the distorted house collapsed inward. Its walls of lead bricks fell inward as the conical roof fell downward and inside. Metal collapsed on top of metal as everything went downward and inward. The inside of the structure had become a pit, a blank and infinite hole in the planet: a massive gaping mouth into which everything built around it was being swallowed whole.

When the last few metal pieces fell in, there was a quaking r-r-r-_rumbling _of sound as the edges of the pit began to move and narrow. Ever-so-slowly, the abyss became a ditch. Then the ditch shrunk, becoming closed. This went until there was nothing but flatness again. What was once a distorted house and the deniers, that was gone. There was to be no more sound of that Machinery. The sound of those motorcycles fading off into the foggy air: a fog that was now beginning to lift.

The air was soon cleaned and made crisp again. Along with it went the crusty rot that sealed all the doors shut. A woman in pajamas ran barefooted out the front door of her house. Never mind that her hair looked wild and unkempt, and never mind that she looked bedraggled. She was just so damned _happy _to finally be out of her house! Better yet, the air was different. It was…_clear!_

"_Hey, everybody! We're free! _Come on out!" she shouted. "_It's gone!_" As more front doors opened, more people cautiously emerged from their houses to see that it was true. The air was clear, and everything was fresh. They were too happy to pay attention to the now-vacant lot between two houses where there was once a structure: where there were also oily patches staining the dead grass where there were once the bodies of Deniers.

…

4.

…

"Don't dawdle, child," said the tall severe woman in black dress and hat: Miss Gauche. She was accompanied by two maids in servants' clothes and white aprons: their faces covered with gauzy red veils. The way they stood, there was something slightly odd about it. "One should think that you would be pleased for the opportunity to be up and away from the hospital bed. I can understand how you would be disoriented following the transition. But what we need from you is coherence and stability! If you are to be a proper young lady worthy of the Longhorn name and power over the land, you must act appropriately and with the proper pride. So… Up you go! _Out _of the wheelchair! Would you have the chauffeur and servants waiting even longer for your emergence?"

Selena's head was bowed in dizziness and nausea: lengths of her long silken hair curtaining her face. It hid her facial expression, but she likely had an expression of weakness and continued suffering. The large padded wheelchair she was in seemed to make her seem even more frail and delicate. The red dress they put on her was of a thin material: clinging to her thin body and not at all keeping in heat. Not only did she feel cold, she was also disoriented: feeling as if she was barely here.

This was the front entrance to the hospital, and the dying rays of sunset filtered through the glass doors. It was near sunset. And a red limousine was indeed parked out there. Out there was troublesome to her, because the sunset was irritating her skin. Still, this "Miss Gauche" woman would not relent until Selena was able to get up. She closed her eyes, inhaled, and…_concentrated._

The wind outside the hospital picked up slightly. Nurses at the nearby front-counter looked around nervously when a small radio they were listening to became overcome with static: a different song playing through the static. And the maids standing next to Miss Gauche stood up straighter, swaying on their feet in big clunky black shoes. They even began to make small mewling noises from behind the red veils over their faces. Then the lights flickered.

She opened her eyes and climbed out of the wheelchair, turned to face it: her large green eyes staring… That wheelchair began…to _move, _going backwards, rolling over to the counter: the sound of radio static in the air. The human nurses over there were visibly nervous as it rolled closer to them, making their little portable radio become even louder with static. One of the nurses even looked ready to run away. After this, Selena turned her gaze to Miss Gauche.

"That was exquisite, child," said the tall woman. "I would not have expected such discipline and control from you at such an early stage. There was some excessive leakage into the local ambiance, yet that can be improved with the proper instruction. There will be more time for that following your arrival upon the estate. So… Come along." Selena did, walking towards the entrance on her own two feet. The doors opened with a deep _whirring _sound: the electrical motors humming to open the way.

…

Outside the hospital and parked across the street were several patrol cars: each of the vehicles with janitors in jumpsuit-uniforms: ready to come out and deal with any potential threat to the precious girl coming out of the hospital. The janitors' vehicles resembled police cars from another place. Except, the car headlights were modified halogen-arc lamps strong enough to deter blasphemers. And the "sirens" mounted on the vehicle's roof were cylindrical resonators: calibrated to call hordes of _animals _and other janitors as necessary.

In one parked patrol car, the janitor in the driver's seat looked at the girl and her entourage as she walked towards the red limousine. He could only get a slight and diagonal look at her from this distance. That was definitely the girl: her face obscured by the large hat she had on and her long moon-silk hair cascading down her back. A chauffeur held the limousine door open for her, and she climbed in. He sat up in the seat and leaned forward as if he could get more of a look at the girl: wanting to see more of her. The tall woman in black said some words to the chauffeur before herself going into that fancy red long-car. A glimpse was all he had, a glimpse before the limousine door was closed and the chauffeur walked around front to prepare driving.

"Yes, indeed… It looks like the old stories were right," commented the other janitor as he leaned back in the shotgun seat. "Except I would've thought they would have been taller…and dressed in green instead of red." He leaned an arm out the open car-door window: fingers feeling the late-day breeze that blew along the sidewalk. "I suppose they'll do what they want with her: if she lets them, I mean. She could probably bless them any time she wants."

The janitor in the driver's seat said nothing immediately. He looked on longingly as the red limousine drove off. Three other patrol cars went to follow. This car was not going to follow; it was assigned to stay here. Oh, how he wanted to be near _the girl-_to be in that group! He wanted to be _blessed_ for so long: since he heard the stories at religious gatherings. Now it would be possible. "_For so long…_" he mewled. "_Such a long time._"

"Wa-hey! Take it easy, buddy," said the janitor in the shotgun seat. "We all knew she would come. We've been waiting forever and a day, so another few days won't matter much in the long run. Right? You've got your faith. I've got mine. So just mellow out. We'll get our blessing just like everybody else…when the right day comes. Then everybody will be together."

"…Together with paradise on this Earth," completed the janitor in the driver's seat. "Ever since I was a small kid, over and over, they kept telling me that _she _was going to come down and bless us all, make the world wonderful again. The rest of the world seems like a rotten and stupid place. And it seems like only the towns with our religion are any good! Some of the tourists used to come here during the Warm season and say the dumbest things. Those outsiders… Why did Mr. Longhorn bother, continuing tourism? Some of them won't ever understand the truth until the day of the Descent!"

"I agree," responded the janitor in the shotgun seat. "But Mr. Longhorn has his reasons. For one, he needed some expertise from the outside: some people from those fancy schools: to help with his Great Works. Then there's how spreading the religion is good for us. Where else would newcomers go? They wouldn't dare go to Silent Hill now. Too scared and ignorant, most folks. As you said, they just wouldn't understand…"

"They'll understand, alright. They'll understand when the faithful are blessed!" exclaimed the janitor in the driver's seat. He was worked up into a frenzy now, his hands and jaw clenched. It was the very same kind of fanaticism seen in some places of worship. "We'll be the ones blessed while they are left to pain and suffering! Perhaps the Flesh Lords will find something to do with them, the unbelievers. And _we _will be the ones enjoying everything forever, in eternal bliss!"

…

The passenger compartment of this limousine was like a miniature living room. On the vehicle's floor was red-pile carpeting. Seats were plush and wide, like sofas. A miniature chandelier made for dim lighting in here, shining over a small coffee table fastened down. It was just comfortable enough that Selena could tolerate the things in the other seat.

She was trying to ignore the guttural muttered and grunting sounds that came from Miss Gauche's assistants, the two women-things with their faces covered in reddish veils. They were _things, _not real: thinly disguised to resemble human beings, and sitting to the left and right of Miss Gauche. The red veils covered their faces and red gloves covered their hands, while tight maids' dresses and black stockings covered up any otherwise possibly exposed skin. Oh yes, Selena certainly knew that those two truly were; she could sense their true nature with her mind. Those things were _blessed: _muttering with covered mouths that probably had far too many teeth, their covered skin probably blotched over and bumpy with insane tumors: runway cancers. Every so often, their heads would begin to twitch.

As the sky took on shades of dark blue and mists began to roll along the ground, this red limousine drove through the open gateway: then went along the curving roadway that meandered through the front grounds of the estate: trees at the sides. Selena had never been into the Longhorn Estate herself in her lifetime. At least she did not ever remember doing so. It seemed that the forested property surrounding the grand house itself was larger in this world: darker and wider than what she had seen in just driving by. The encroaching darkness of night seemed to make the woods out there seem darker and larger. And yes, the figures in the periphery of the limousine's headlights were certainly _animals: _their bulbous bodies glanced loping along in the sunset-shaded underbrush and standing by trees as this vehicle passed byEven if some of them looked vaguely human, there was nothing but _animals _in the woods this close to sunset. The mists were just beginning to roll in…

This vehicle emerged into a cleared field beyond the forest: a field easily large enough to accommodate multiple football matches. Except instead of athletes at play, there was a gigantic grand house: resplendid in architecture and dominating the landscape. As the car slowly curved around the half-mile bend in getting over to there, the lights fronting the grand house faded on and dazzled the entranceway. It took a good several minutes before this long car arrived at the front entrance itself. Selena heard Miss Gauche speak. Saying, "This is the very core of the Longhorn Estate. I trust that you will conduct yourself as befitting a proper young lady of your blessed status." Selena's eyelids narrowed slightly at the word, _blessed. _She was beginning to have a hatred for the word. They went in.

…

Beyond the front entrance, janitors guarded the foyer: standing aside to let them in. This opened the way into the grand front-hall: an indoor space easily the size of a theater. A wide-open black-and-white marble-tiled floor lay out and wide, with a grand staircase across the way that led upward. The grand staircase was flanked by two large alcoves furnished to comfortably seat guests around tables: bookshelves and lamps nearby. Six chandeliers illuminated everything from high above.

Selena nodded to herself at the significance of this. Yes, there had to be _six_ chandeliers: no doubt with traces of platinum in the metal-working. Miss Gauche led Selena beyond the grand staircase as the maid-things grotesquely staggered off to the sides: their heads vibrating like mad as their arms bent in ways that were not humanly possible. And now they were making gasping sounds, filling the space as their hard shoes clacked on the marble floor: staggering and making spasms as they walked in that grotesque way of theirs. The maid-things were no longer in public, and so there was no longer a need for them to maintain their vaguely human postures. "Never mind them," insisted Miss Gauche. "Your evening repast awaits consumption. It has been especially prepared for you, my dear: especially given your unique and exquisite dietary desires." The next door opened led into the dining-hall

The dining hall was a space half the size of the front-hall, yet no less elegant. Along the left and right walls were red-marble busts on pedestals that were positioned below various portraits of who were: no doubt: past inhabitants and masters of this place. A six-bulb chandelier hung over the long table at the center. All kinds of covered trays were arranged near the far end, and a trio of black-clad butlers stood nearby. There should have been the smell of food in the air. There was instead the smell of greasy gray and red things that should not be here.

One of the butlers pulled out the seat over there while the other remained by the dining cart. Miss Gauche gestured towards it. _Go on, child. _Selena did so. She walked towards that seat though part of her mind was _screaming _at her. Something was very wrong with all of this. If she sat down in that chair and let them reveal what was on those covered trays, it would only be the beginning of something awful.

_Run away from this table! _She sat down despite her better wishes. _Do not do this! _That nearby butler announced, "Dinner is served, princess." _Oh God no… Please do not lift the tray. _His white-gloved fingers pinched the little knob atop the first silvery cover and lifted. The first sight was something to make a person wretch.

On the plate were things that were still alive. They were some gray-skinned slug-things the size of mice, writhing and squirming atop a small bed of black-mottled red leaves. The open air was drying their skin as the light irritated their sensory organs. The things were from darkness and preferred darkness: writhing in pain and irritation.

Selena began to do things before she even understood what was happening. A few quick glances from her, and the slug-things were killed: their little spade-shaped heads _crushed _inward by unseen forces. Her own slim fingers then gripped the dead little oily gray creatures and brought them to her waiting mouth: saliva dripping from her lips. She squeezed the gray bodies, making for greasy black-and-gray mottled stuff squirt out and into her mouth: thick and gummy ichor. Then she gulped it down as the wonderful taste fill her mouth and swallowed: taking it into her body by mouth-fuls. When the large slugs' bodies were empty, she swallowed the skins.

Oh yes, they were _delicious. _Before long, the rest of the half-dozen slug-things on her plate were eaten and gone. The skins were barely even chewed when she swallowed them as well. The little girl had quite a big appetite! With that appetite came an even larger thirst.

The butler uncovered a bowl of red liquid: with little black furry things swimming in it. Selena's eyes were wide open in staring at the bowl. Mouth open, she uptilted the bowl and gulped down the contents. Selena was so immersed in her feeding frenzy that she did not even notice that she was not even using her hands: the bowl held aloft by the powers of her mind.

Miss Gauche was pleased despite the rather savage and frenzied activity of all this. The fact that the girl had a ravenous appetite for food from that Otherworld: even extensively "contaminated" food: showed that she truly was a catalyst. No human mouth could even touch that without developing sores or diseases, and even the most blessed human stomach could not even hold it for long without being overcome with cancers and other reactions.

When the last of it was gone, there was somehow not a stain on Selena's face. Her hands were clean: though still damp. The ravaged remains of her meal lay atop the nearby trays as she looked dazed at things. She had consumed everything they had given her, everything and anything. It must have easily been a quarter of her body weight, yet her stomach was still as flat and lean as it was when she woke up in the hospital bed: as if the food went somewhere else when she gulped it all down.

Moreover true was how she was now able to use her mind-touch with a great deal more ease. Her skill was used with so much ease that she did not have to use her hands for much of the meal, after the second tray. _Too _easy, it was. Only the most experienced members of the religion should have been able to flex such power and so easily. Though she now thought that her mind was even stronger.

She wondered what they had done to her at the hospitalAs Miss Gauche laid her hands atop the backrest of the chair, Selena stared at her own hands: still trying to get used to the idea that she was as petite as a young child and looked so. She knew that beneath her skin and hidden by her physical appearance, she was no more human inside than the slug-things she had just eaten. Then what was she now, if not human?

…

_In the Other world, through the darkened and rust-metal halls, red-colored mists floated along the floor: a floor of wire-mesh grating, made crusty with rust and dried grease. Beyond the walls, beneath the floors, the engines of the Machine continued to thrum on in the darkness. Except now the engines hummed somewhat more loudly. _"_Ergh-ach! Elkric satyagraha-a-a, al oblamah!_" _cheered the Denier as it crawled along the ceiling, all six arms working as it moved. "Elkrick oblamah krod-dor!" Now the thrum of the engines was somewhat like the sound of covered fires._


	8. Chapter EigHT

__

Silent Hill: The Dream Machine

by Elliot Bowers

Chapter 8

A little red-plastic radio lie atop a nearby wooden stump. It gave a frightful squeal of static when the head of an axe went up…into the air, coming down... _Chunk! _The sturdy sharp metal blade bit into the naked, decapitated body of the fallen tree that lay on the grass. Stripped of bark and leaves, the upper half sawed off, the once-tall tree trunk was indeed humiliated now as it was being mutilated by the axe: slowly being _chop-chop-chopped _in half. _Chunk! _And that was the point! _Chunk! _Listen to us.

Dressed in his outdoorsman's outfit of jeans and checkered over-shirt, a woolen white shirt beneath, Samuel Longhorn was out here and chopping wood. More specifically, he was chopping _this _wood: a tree from the woods at the edge of his estate. This particular tree was highly resistant to the influence of the nightly fogs and radiation from the engines. All the other trees of the forests were being changed quite nicely: their trunks leaking with pervasive red. You are trying to ignore what you hear.

This was a fallen tree: though not yet defeated. And it was that lack of defeat that made for so much _annoyance _and _anger… Chunk! _ He again raised his axe up into the iron-cold air again, the clouded sky above, and _again _brought down the axe… _Chunk-k-k! _ He still had the blade of the tool down in this tree when he began to hear the faint sound of something on the radio: something else besides the static. You can hear us.

This tree _still _stubbornly resisted. Of all the trees of all the forests in this town: of all the trees in all the forests of _his _town: he would _not _have lone trees standing in the way of progress! So he felled this tree, then had it stripped and the branchy top chopped off. He would do the rest. _Chunk… _Another burst of static squealed out from the little red-plastic radio: followed by shuddering rasping sounds. You do not listen because you cannot see the truth of the red.

This tree of trees was not the only thing standing in the way of Samuel Longhorn gaining of power. According to what had been communicated to him, _something _had crossed over into town two days ago: coming across the chasm. He was making amazing progress with the engines and expected nothing but _blessed _progress to come of it. Therefore, anything that appeared in this town should have been in his favor. The axe has a very sweet taste.

Except this new _something _in town was acting against him. The Deniers had been grunting and growling with anger as they communicated to his mind that an engine _and_ a capacitor had been broken, shunted and destroyed. A _capacitor_ destroyed, they would _not _deliver another: not for at least another thousand years! Beyond that, the Deniers were being more vague than usual in their communications with him, hinting that he would not fully understand. You secretly fear the blue while hating the yellow.

Consumption of a red liquid and the transition allowed Samuel to understand the means of communication used by the Deniers. He was then able to form extensive partnerships with them as they had mutual interests. They were aware of his work and had agreed to join with him. However, now they were being somewhat stand-offish and not fully forthcoming in their opinions of him and his plan. It was as if they were leaving it to him to deal with the new thing in town. The circle is invincible.

Small wisps of gold-colored smoke began to rise from the deep cut in the tree, and the little red-plastic radio was squealing like mad as when five janitors walked across the small grassy field back here on the rear grounds of this estate, getting over to this man chopping the wood. All five of these janitors were tall men dressed in the red overalls and work-shirts that constituted the uniform of their profession, all of them armed with pistols in holsters. All had sober looks on their faces and had their heads slightly bowed. Something was clearly wrong and disappointing. You can hear colors once more.

"Mr. Longhorn? We've got bad news," said one of the janitors as Mr. Longhorn whirled down his axe once more… _Chunk! _With the head of the sharp tool halfway in the trunk of the tree, static whining from the radio, Samuel Longhorn paused his actions with shoulders hunched. Yes, he was listening…to the janitors, though not what was coming from the little red-plastic radio. "That thing you mentioned? We actually saw four of them going along Richter Avenue. They were riding close together, really close together. We think they were on very big motorcycles: huge motorcycles. _Really _huge. We weren't able to identify the make and model of their vehicles because we've never seen that kind before." There is no looking away from the flavors we wish to fix.

"Why, of course they were that way," began Samuel Longhorn. "Their means of transportation, what you see as motorcycles, are just as unidentifiable as that accursed bus." He _yanked_ on his axe, the head coming free from the wood with a quick squeak of sound as the radio gave a quick hiss of pained static. He then gave a quick _stomp _to the body of this half-bisected tree before turning to face the janitors. "Unidentifiable, unless you happen to be in possession of a time machine, that is. So tell me of this next atrocity committed by this counter-productive entity, that which you insist exists in the plural rather than the singular." The horsemen smell the sweetness of your axe. _What? _Of all the miscellaneous noises coming from the little red-plastic radio, he definitely heard _that! _Put your ears to the tainted breeze. 

Just then, the sound of static-noise on the little plastic radio began to change. It faded just enough to let through the sound of a muttering announcer. Just as a janitor opened his mouth to say something, Samuel raised his right hand in a gesture that meant, _Shut up for a moment. _He leaned sideways: his face straining as he strained to hear. There was certainly _something _being said through the little plastic radio. Except the announcer kept muttering. The _static _now seemed all the more irritating. Now the colors are everything.

He stepped over to the little red-plastic radio, where it was placed upon the tree stump: leaning the weapon against the stump itself. This was as so he could pick the little red-plastic radio and try to manipulate the tuning knob in an effort to quiet the voices in the radio station: the occasionally audible voices that said such things. This only made for even more incomprehensible squealing and static. Except now the voices were speaking in languages language Samuel could not understand… Or the static and interference was warping and distorting the broadcast to such an extent that it could not be understood. He stared at the radio as it squealed and screamed. We belong where you do not belong, not anymore.

"_Who are you to say that!_" He dropped the radio when he finally heard something said to him. It had been said with perfect clarity, totally clean of static and interference. "Did you just hear what was said?" The other janitors stared blankly. "There were voices on the radio just now, voices through the static and talking in chorus…. Hear now! _It spoke again!_" Ears come in different colors.

One of the janitors turned his head to the side and cupped his right earlobe with his hand and leaning towards the radio to listen. All that he heard was more of the same: haphazard static and chaotic noise. Perhaps there was some muttering in the little red-plastic radio. He lowed his hand and shrugged. "You are more receptive than we are, Mr. Longhorn. If you heard anything, it's because you can and we can't." Your ear is not more strong and is more wrong, for so long.

_Voices_, he was hearing _voices_. No, put that way, it seemed as if he was losing his mind, which was ridiculous. He _knew _that he was hearing something on the radio. At regular intervals, he could clearly hear a group of voices talking right to _him_. Such sentences were gibberish sentences that seemed to make no immediate sense. Yet the clarity with which they were said blocked out any probability that they were mere flukes. _Something wants me to hear this, _he thought to himself. _Something knows what I am doing/ _We dance to the sound of glowing gold as the air is filled with her pretty song.

__

"Gibberish! You shut up!" he yelled at the little red-plastic radio, picking it up and _throwing _it to the ground. And since the ground was grassy and well-cultivated, it only gently _thumped _upon impact and even bounced a little: not at all the expected result of what Samuel expected! "_I know what you're trying to do!_" he yelled at the radio. "Now you shall listen to the sound of my _axe!_ " He raised his axe, turned it around as so the dull end faced forward, and brought it down to silence the little red-plastic radio.

…

Selena was sitting on a tall stool and looking out of the window of her new bedroom: or her prison, depending on how one saw things. From up here in the third story of the mansion, she could see out and above Mr. Longhorn and the group of janitors. She saw him butchering that poor tree and could almost hear the dying screams in her mind, screams of agony and pain as his axe chopped and _chopped _until the janitors came and Mr. Longhorn did something to a little red object on the tree stump. They all seemed small from up here: small figures on the small green field bordered by the nearby forest, with sunlight shining diagonally downward. Her eyes felt slightly irritated by the light at first, but she was getting used to it. Her eyes were still more sensitive to light since she came from the hospital. Getting used to things was what she hoped to do: as she was getting used to her new child-like incarnation.

Her gaze slowly turned from the ornate picture-window to this grandly furnished prison-bedroom of hers: red silk carpet spread out on the floor and furniture along the walls. This tall red-painted stool she was sitting on, it was next to a wide desk built to a child's stature: set lower to the ground. Before it was a little chair: painted a dull burgundy color. Against the adjacent wall were two tall bookshelves: each shelf full of neatly arranged religious and philosophical books. A full-length mirror was available for her to look at herself: as small a person as she was now. There was a massive bed far across from it. It truly was queen-sized, with thick crimson-colored quilts that had to be red silk: lumpy shapes beneath the quilt. A circular air-vent was set in the floor next to the bed… Beyond that, there was a door leading to a private bathroom just for the occupant of this bedroom. That bathroom was large and luxurious: easily half the size of this room. There was even an especially large bath in there as well.

She used the large luxurious bath no longer than necessary. It was so large, almost like a small swimming pool, and she was just a child. The water also seemed too hot no matter how much she tried to adjust it. So it had been just a hurried bath. She loved showers. Yet there were none to be had. Done bathing as soon as she could, she had quickly dried herself and dressed in the new clothes available.

The bed still vaguely worried her. She knew this room well and was justified in her worry about the bed. Earlier today, in curiosity, she had pulled back the red crimson blanket to reveal what made those lumps in the quilt. There were chains underneath there: five lengths of chain, each ending in a velvet-lined brass-colored cuff. Two chains were for ankles, two were for wrists, and the last one at the head of the bed…

The last velvet-lined cuff was waiting for her neck… Staring at this setup began to give her a headache, and it was making her feel upset. So she pulled the blanket back into its previous position to completely cover over the setup. Not wanting to be close to such an evil-looking setup, she stood back and used her mind-touch to move the blanket back to its original placement, making the crimson silk quilt lie flat and showing the lumps. Then she went to sit by the window and look outside. Looking outside was a lot more calming than staring at this well-furnished place of entrapment.

Besides the door to the adjacent bathroom, there was just one door out of this bedroom. The door itself had platinum and gold designs on it, with a golden doorknob. A golddoorknob, it was a _gold _doorknob of all things! One thing that Selena had discovered about her new self was that any metal of gold or brass, it made her feel weak, sick and tired: very weak and tired, sometimes making her hear groaning voices in her head. When she tried to reach up and touch that doorknob, to walk out of here, as soon as her fingertips had touched the doorknob…she had blacked out for a second: staggering backwards as distorted groans and stretched _scre-e-e-eams_ filled her mind. As for the window, it was also sealed: as if it was to prevent her from floating away.

So now she stayed away from the door entirely. But it was not as if she _had _to leave. There was already the bathroom, which she already used to bathe herself. For clothes, there was an armoire full of clothes tailored to her. The shelves of books were here to keep her entertained. They knew that she did not really have to eat anymore, at least not the food of this world, so there was no cupboard for such victuals. Everything she would ever need was right here. They also knew that she could not jump out of the window and kill herself. Because death would only bring her back to here. Even then, she did not want to die again.

There was no escape from here. That was it. They were going to do what they wanted to her and there was nothing she could do about it, even if she could do things with her mind. Perhaps she could use her mind to destroy the maids if they tried to put her in that accursed bed with the five chains. Trying to kill Miss Gauche was impossible because of the jewelry she wore beneath her clothing. There was no harming Miss Gauche, then.

That was it. There was no escaping this place. Mr. Longhorn and Miss Gauche had plans for her, such plans involving her being contaminated and altered until there was nothing of her original self left. They had already changed her body. And eventually, they were going to change her mind. She could already feel the emotional alterations happening to her because she was being _changed: _her mind becoming darker and more dour. The girl began to cry, wishing that someone…or something would save her.

…

2.

…

Sunset was going to be coming soon, and so all the townspeople were rapidly going home to go indoors. Cars were parked in front of houses and doors were locked. Last-minute errands were cut short and ended. It was not long before the last of the doors were _clicked _shut and locked up. The fogs of night would not come in for at least an hour yet. Yet no one wanted to be outdoors. Since the transition, the nightly fogs were getting worse: even a few seconds of exposure to the stuff would make a person contaminated and prone to a prolonged and premature death: before the day of the Descent. And with the day of Descent so close at hand, people were doing what they could to stay alive and not die prematurely: not before paradise arrived! It was just the fog they had to look out for, the fog that came in every night and stayed longer into the day. With the fog came new hordes of _animal _and…other things now. Everyone in this town knew what _animals _were, but some of the new things in town couldn't just be called that. They were something else more odd than the _animals_.

For that reason, the downtown area was abandoned at sunset, with cars parked hastily at the sides of the streets and the store-front businesses empty: the streets and buildings alike painted in blood-red tones of sunset as bitingly cold winds howled across. What should have been a place of bustling late-afternoon business and leisure in restaurants and shops was now a place of abandonment and desolation. The transition had certainly made things different.

It began as a bass rumbling-roar at first. This rumbling became an…airborne sound like…_an earthquake…even though the ground itself did not tremble. The rumbling sound echoed throughout the downtown street, making the glass of storefront windows quiver and the metal of parked cars vibrate. It became louder still to the point where the plate glass of the windows were visibly vibrating and the metal of the cars were quivering enough to seem to shake the vehicles apart. The sunset-glared air itself began to blur with the noise…!_

When it stopped, all the excessive noise and vibration, there was a sudden blast of unusually warm air as the four massive motorcycles faded into view: parked in front of that down café-diner with the sealed door. The vehicles were all neatly parked and shadowy, the engine-frames and black rubber wheels seeming to swallow light while articulated chrome parts gleamed. And the four dark bikers themselves were striding on over to the front door itself: their weapons fastened to their backs with buckles: the odd rifle on one rider's back, the great knife on another's, the nunchaku on the back of the third, and the scythe on the back of the fourth. The dark biker with the scythe reached for the front door: slowly pulled it open, and walked on in with the others following.

…

_Clank! _The door shut, and a fresh seal rusted into place. The dark bikers walked across the floor and moved over to the center table. There, these four wild-haired figures in jeans, boots and dark leather jackets unsung their great weapons from their backs and let them lean against the edge of the table or rest on the floor at their feet as they sat down. All the other tables were empty: no one else seeming to be here to enjoy the food or perhaps the singer to appear on the little stage. There were some mannequins seated in the dining booths by the sunset-gleamed window. Yet they did not matter…for now.

The dark biker of the scythe put both hands atop the table. "_Give to us the taste of the town!_" he growled aloud, looking over at the man behind that quick-service counter over there. "We have come for a purpose. That purpose will be fulfilled! Serve us as so we may serve you."

That broad-shouldered bald man in black pants and white shirt: the head waiter: stepped out from behind the quick-order counter. He was balancing trays in both hands, each tray with two burningly hot cups of cinnamon-flavored coffee. _Burningly hot, _that was literally true; there was actually a layer of fire burning at the top of each cup of liquid.

The very second the trays went down on the table, the four dark bikers simultaneously reached for the presented cups: their right hands outstretching. They all drank at the same time as well. Down went the cinnamon-flavored coffee, being gulped. Though the fire in the cups flicked at their hairy faces and played at their noses, their faces seemed unaffected. Their facial hair did not even catch fire: as if the whiskers were strands of asbestos or wiry steel-wool instead of hair. And it was not soon before the cups of fiery liquid were gone.

They set down the now-emptied cups, faint wisps of reddish smoke still puffing up from them. "_I know this flavor very, very well_…" growled the dark biker of the odd rifle. He put his right hand on the hand-guard just below the barrel of his weapon, regarding the weapon. "_I have seen its color very often. It is the way things begin to go._"

"_And it continues from there,_" snarled the dark biker of the great knife. Though his voice resembled an angry growl, he actually seemed to smile. "They will _feel_ our trouble. Fight us? We fight _them_."

__

"Right on," growled the dark biker of the nunchaku. "And everything is the right weight, too." At the moment, his chain-segmented weapon was resting atop his right boot, underneath this table. "The load is not too light, and there is now barley and oatmeal enoughThere will be a lot more barley from broken clay…" He licked his lips as if he could taste something delicious.

"Don't crave that! Not this time!" yelled the dark biker of the scythe. The other bikers sat up straight in response, obedient to the one of the scythe. They were sitting just as rigidly as the mannequins seated by the windows. "_It is ours when it is ours. _The circle is not yet closed. A gap still remains in the circle. Follow the dance, follow the truth!"The other four bikers went quiet, and the bald serving man took a step back.

The cups emptied of their liquids, the dark bikers put them onto the two trays: which were picked up by the bald-headed waiter. "We will have knowledge of their nature," said the dark biker with the scythe. "You should fill the air with smile when you serve us, for you know what we do." Then he smiled at the bald-headed waiter. He had made an order, and the order had to be filled if the dark bikers were to be good customers.

Then the waiter walked away: going behind the counter with the two trays of emptied cups. He crouched down behind there and began doing something that made for all kinds of clattering and clanking sounds: the sounds of a small appliance. "_Ergh-ach!_" yelled something behind there. When the head waiter stood up again, his trays were covered with little doll-sized muscular men in coveralls, miniaturized versions of the midgets that appeared every so often: the blood workers.

These particular blood-workers were especially fresh. The head waiter carried this next serving over to the tables where the dark bikers waited. There the trays were set down and frenzied hands _snatched _up the hapless little humanoids in coveralls. Whereas the dark bikers were so rigid and formal in drinking the cinnamon-flavored coffee, they were now acting with intense savagery in _chomping _and _ripping_ _up _the little men. Big feisty hands gripped the little bodies and brought them to mouths. Mouths chomped and made for plenty of mess dropping onto the plates. Some of the little men on the trays tried to weakly crawl away as their comrades were consumed. Yet their movement only drew attention to themselves as big biker hands wrapped around them and brought them to mouths dripping red. That, and the eyes of the dark bikers began to take on a dark red glow.

The head waiter took a step back and watched as the little doll-sized men were being viciously consumed. He had a look of sympathy on his face as those blood-workers writhed in pain as they were mutilated: before being swallowed by the dark bikers' mouths. In serving the Others, the blood workers were only doing what they were created to do. Now they suffered for it. And more still would suffer.

Over at the small stage of this café, the velvet curtains parted: revealing the green-eyed young girl that Selena had met before: a girl that Selena now resembled as a twin. This time she was dressed in an emerald-colored silk gown that went to her knees and left her arms bare: belted around her slim waist with a sash of gold-embroidered cloth. Her long pale-blonde hair fluttered behind her as she hopped down from the stage and quickly strode over to the table, her bare feet making almost no sound as she moved.

She slowed in coming closer, clasping her hands and walking with head bowed. She stopped nine steps from the table: where she spoke with sadness in her voice. "I succor thy audience," she asked. Even with her head bowed and her hair curtaining her face, she noticed that one of the dark bikers abruptly stopped his rampaging gobbling of the little men. It was the dark biker of the scythe, now sitting stock-still…and listening to the strange girl. "'Tis the matter of kinfolk. Verily, she is dear to me. I beg ye not to abduct or bring harm to her. Let me bear her away."

"That one is mottled with the crimson" growled the dark biker, bits of ichor from the madly consumed meal dripping from his lips. "If she is contaminated, she will be in our way. We destroy anything in our way, that stands against us, that stands in the path of the inevitable. _We _are inevitable. No one shall take part in our purpose before the circle is complete."

Oh, she certainly did not want to hear that: such bad news! At least the dark biker of the scythe was talking to her. If she could talk to him, then there was still hope. She spoke again. "If thy purpose be true, thy purpose to preserve that which must be, then surely thy will must include the welfare of those who can be redeemed. Contamination can be purged."

"Her contamination is becoming too strong," insisted the dark biker of the scythe. "We have tasted the truth of the town. It must be undone. Nothing in the world will stop us" 

Then she knew the solution. It was simple: Selena would not be destroyed if she stayed out of the path of the dark bikers. There was no guarantee that Selena hadn't been converted to the ways of those who came from that _Other _world: the world of the one called "God." But if Selena _was _far too contaminated, then she was no longer truly a Sister. She would have to be counted among those lost to the darkness and madness that was spreading one world at a time, such darkness and madness invited in by pride and greed in the case of Samuel Longhorn.

…

3.

…

The sky above was blanked out with black, and the night-darkened air was dusted with some fog. Twin florescent-blue headlights cut through the airborne thickness as this patrol car ambled along one of the downtown avenues: passing by streetlamp-illuminated streets with storefront businesses. Both of the janitors in this car were looking around as this car motored slowly along. There was also the slow and occasional _click-click-click _sound of the dashboard-mounted Geiger counter: the counter's dial illuminated with a little incandescent bulb-inside its case. _Click-click… _This lack of nightly fog in this part of town was disturbing. It was more troubling as it was a show of exactly what happened when one of those important engine-machines was wrecked.

_Click-click… Bz-z-zt!_ The car radio buzzed to life, sounding louder than the Geiger counter that steadily clicked with sounds of mid-level radiation. "_Car Forty-Two, this is the Weather Tower. Report car forty-two_. _Car Forty-Two, report._" Radio communication was even easier in this part of town: another sign of this part of town reverting. If that engine-thing from the Deniers was still intact, radio communication would have been a bit more difficult. "_We need a local count of the blessings, over…_"

After glancing at the self-illuminated Geiger counter, the janitor in the shotgun-seat picked up the radio-handset. He said into it, "Weather Tower, this is Car Forty-Two. The _blessing_ count is still below thirty percent of the threshold. Humidity is also low. _Animal_ activity is the same, over." Indeed, everything was going just as wrong as it had been before.

"_Car Forty-Two, this is the Weather Tower,_" responded the voice from the radio speaker. The voice sounded a bit more fuzzed now. "_Continue your patrol. An APB for the four strangers remains in effect. Listen for the sound of small earthquakes or for miscellaneous radio interference, over._" The janitor in the driver's seat smirked, wondering what the Hell was meant by _miscellaneous radio interference_.

"Weather Tower, we copy that. We will be on the lookout for the four troublemakers." _Click-click-click… _So went the Geiger counter, still ticking at a steady pace. "The blessings count is still holding steady. We will continue our patrol. Are there any other alerts, over?" He went quiet, waiting for a reply.

_Bzzt! _"_Car Forty-Two, also be potentially aware of self-illuminated unidentified aircraft. The dark strangers are believed to work in conjunction with unlicensed air transportation. This has not been confirmed. Again, be on the lookout for additional suspicious activity, over,_" _Bzzt!_

"Weather Tower, this is Car Forty-Two," responded the janitor in the shotgun seat. "We copy that. Over and out." That said, he leaned forward to set the radio handset back on its small hook next to the console. "You've heard it. Now we've got more stuff to look out and listen for. Go looking for trouble, and it's bound to find us." He looked out the side-window on his side of the car.

_Swish!_ "What the…?" exclaimed the janitor in the driver's seat, gripping the steering wheel. "Did you feel _that?_ It's like a gust of wind just _slammed _right into us! Nearly made me lose control of the car." _Bzzt! A blade by the bed, a phone in my hand… _"What was that! Something just happen to the radio?"

"What do you mean?" asked the janitor in the shotgun seat. "That burst of static? That was probably…" _What should I do-o-o… Baby? _Yes, he heard it: the sound of a woman singing on the same frequency this patrol car's radio was using. He leaned forward, closer to the dashboard: his left ear close to the speaker. He could just _barely _hear the singing, along with background instrumentals. It was such a catchy, beautiful song: making him press his ear against the dashboard speaker. "I can…_hear _her!"

"Hear what? There aren't supposed to be any radio station broadcasts coming into this town! You know how it is! All I hear is just _you _and the sound of the radio going nuts as usual. Probably because we're in a thicker patch of the fog," responded the janitor driving this car. "Unless…"

"It's gone now," said the janitor in the shotgun seat, pressing his ear closer still to the radio. "Damn, now there's just this stupid squealing static. Hey, let's turn around. Maybe we can get back to the place where we could get better reception of the song again? She was singing about something important. If I could hear her song a little better…"

"Are you turning _blue_ on me, buddy?" responded the janitor in the driver's seat. "Just calm down. I didn't hear anything on the radio other than that interference. Even then, it just sounded like the usual noise. It only _sounds _like singing if you _think _it does. It's all in your head, hear me? A lot of things are, especially nowadays." He paused as he slowed this car down.

A turn of the wheel and a press of the brake pedal, and he was able to park this vehicle on the right side of the road. The florescent-blue headlights continued to cut through the fog and illuminated the various beasts up ahead. "Look at that, some _animals! _Now _they _are real, no imagination needed to see _those _things. Just as real as you and me…"

_Click-click-click-click…! _The Geiger counter's activity was increasing in conjunction with the presence of the _animals _up ahead: which was normal. "What d'you think they're doing over there? Maybe they're here to fix that big engine-thing? Smart things, those _animals. _It's probably because they're so _blessed_. Just _listen _to the counter sing!"

Indeed, the Geiger counter was now clicking like mad: its dial waving wildly around and primarily swinging to the right. Radiation levels outside the car were fluctuating wildly: but staying high. If an analog servomechanism had not automatically turned off the car's two-way radio, its transistors would have been overloaded by the radioactivity. It was because of the _animals_.

The group of _animals_ began to move beyond the range of the car's florescent headlamps: instead illuminated by the streetlight over there. They were doing something over there with each other as they gathered in the middle of the street. Some of them ambled over on six legs, while other dog-sized things slithered along the ground. There were some purple-furred ape-things in the group as well: hobbling along on their rear legs. Their electromechanical face-masks glinting in the streetlamp over there. It was such a beautiful, _blessed _sight.

Another blast of air buffeted this car, and there was a sound like that of an oncoming earthquake: low and _r-r-r-r-rumbling… _They zoomed by so fast along the night-darkened street, riding as a close-knit group, that they seemed to be one entity: their exhaust pipes spouting incandescent flames as they passed. They rocketed straight for the group of _animals _that had congregated at the far end of the street. There was a sound of impact, a deep _boom_ that shook the street, and the _animals _were tossed up like life-sized ragdolls of meat. Indeed, the dark bikers had arrived on the scene.

When the last of the _animals _fell to the sidewalks and the street, they were all very still. Some of them had been exploded, parts of them all over the darkened street . Even those not outright destroyed were still dead: lying on their sides or backs, not moving. They were killed without having been touched, dark and red-tinged ichor oozing from various orifices in their bodies. Just one pass, and over a dozen _animals _were killed. Just like that.

"Sucks to _that_ assmar!" yelled the janitor in the driver's seat. He reached for a thick knob on the dashboard next to the radio. This caused the beige cylindrical resonators atop the patrol car to vibrate with a deep humming sound, and a red light began to glow with a blood-colored glare. He then put the car's transmission in a low gear and _stomped _the accelerator-pedal. A spinning squeal of tires, and this car was soon getting up to a high speed. A glance in the rear-view mirror would have revealed the sudden appearance of a newly formed herd of _animals. _Galloping, running, bouncing and bounding, they were all answering the call of resonators. The _animals _would be more than glad to chase whoever the janitors were after. Hell, they seemed enthusiastic to just be in the process of chasing something tonight!

A _sque-e-eal _of tires, and this car was off! "There they go!" yelled the janitor in the passenger seat. He slapped the dashboard as this patrol car's engine roared with speed. There was no need to look at the speedometer to know how fast this car was speeding along the downtown avenue; they were going at least ten miles per hour over the speed of _damned-fast_. "Hot damn, they're riding scared!" He glanced in the rear-view mirror, seeing that motley herd of galloping, running, sliding things following their lead. "Yeah, and look at that! Even the _animals _are with us on this one! We'll teach those out-of-town bastards to interfere with _our _progress!"

The janitor in the driver's seat was clutching the steering wheel as he leaned forward: his foot firmly on the gas pedal. This street curved a little, and so there was a _sque-e-eal _of tires as this vehicle navigated the arc. They would be halfway out of the downtown district in just minutes at this speed: chasing those God-damned daredevils on motorcycles. If they went straight along this particular avenue and continued out of the downtown area, they would be headed for a six-mile stretch of road that cut through the forest at the south-western end of town. The forest had plenty of _animals: _those wonderful creatures more than willing to put a stop to the shenanigans of these motorcycle maniacs. _Yeah, you daredevils, _thought the janitor in the driver's seat. _Just keep going the way you're going. Just keep going. _He grinned a dark grin.

So intent were the janitors in catching up to the four bikers that they failed to notice peculiarities in the way the bikers were riding: odd little things otherwise noticeable to someone more calm and disconnected from the situation. They would have noticed that, whenever they went _fast _round a curve, the bikers' tires did not squeal even once. Nor did the bikers even _lean _their bikes into the turns as much as they should have. Then there were the streetlamps, which _flickered _as they passed. They did not look back once in speeding along ahead of the janitors in their patrol car and the massive horde of _animals _they had following.

Then the dark bikers vanished into the darkness ahead. "_What the…_" _Kablam! _The janitor in the driver's seat only got out the first two words before something suddenly happened, preventing him from making the third word to complete the exclamation. That third word to come out of his surprised mouth would have been classified as an obscenity, one that euphemistically referred to an act involved in human reproduction. In more recent history, the verb and the act had lost its exclusively reproductive purposes and had become a form of frenzied recreation: especially popular among unmarried segments of the population. Also, that third word would have been a euphemism for the destruction, confusion and utter _defeat _of an individual or a group. It is for that reason that such a verb is exclaimed upon realization that one has come to find one's status to have befallen severe negativity: as a result of another individual or group. Yes, the third word that was supposed to have come out of the janitor's mouth was lost and silenced because of what had suddenly happened now.

Specifically, the burning bus was what happened to this patrol car. It had driven out from an intersection and stopped squarely in the middle of this street : slowing to a stop on its drooping, melting tires. Of course, since the janitors' patrol car was going in excess of a ridiculous speed in chasing the dark strangers on motorcycles, they had no room at all to stop or even time to slam on the brakes. So the janitors' patrol car _slammed _full-speed into the side of the long-gigantic burning vehicle: making for a blast of noise that sounded like the end of the world. _Of course_ the patrol car was destroyed. And, _of course_, the fiery destruction was so complete that the janitors' bodies would not be found. Yet the burning bus itself did not so much as shake from the impact. It simply seemed to absorb the damned fast patrol car.

As for the _animals _that were galloping and bounding and sliding and such, they had legs, hooves, bellies and even wings to slow themselves down. Some of them ran head-first into the flames of the burning metal or stumbled into the wreckage of the wrecked patrol car: though the exteriors of their bodies had been burned to ash by the intensity of the radiation coming from the burning bus. There was no getting close to that.

"_Ach, ach!_" exclaimed some of the _animals. _"_Arwhoo!_" The other _animals _also began making sounds, grunting and squealing, stomping and shouting. They slapped the ground with deformed hands or clomped their hooves as some of their number tried to foolishly approach the burning bus. A few of them went too close: their bodies suddenly burnt to the bone where they stood. There was an invisible threshold at which the intense radiation was just too damned much and would instantly kill. But there was no getting to the burning bus, not at all. All the animals could do was gnash their teeth or hit the ground, making noises. They eventually went away: yet not before a few more of them made dumb rushes towards the burning bus: becoming charred statues of their former selves in the process.

…

The burning bus remained there for some moments more, great flames still waving from its blasted windows as its inside was illuminated with bright fire. Wind blew across and caused the flames to wave to a side. Though the burning bus burned with bright intensity and crackling noise, it produced no smoke. No cloudy columns of gray cloudiness went up to the night sky. There was just the brightness and the intense warmth, light and heat…

There was a squeal of metal-on-metal as the door on the side of the bus _slow-w-w-ly_ opened. Some things in the fire began to move, several figures wading through the thick flames within the bus. Amidst the crackling sound of the flames and the intense brightness, figures in there began to move towards the front and step out of the open side-door: human-shaped figures in large silvery suits out of the bus and standing in the night-darkened street. They walked as if they were unused to the gravity or had not walked in a very long time. One of them had a shiny long sack.

They came around to the side of the bus where the wrecked patrol car was. Pausing, they slowly leaned to the sides: sometimes slowly leaning their reflective helmets close to the wreckage itself. The one with the long sack reached into the burning wreckage, gabbed something, put it in the shiny bag. He repeated the process, having two things in the long shiny sack. He tied it off and began to carry it back around to the other side of the burning bus: small shapes in the sack beginning to squirm and scream with loud squealing sounds. The other two figures followed, walking that ponderous way they did.

…

4

…

_Such beautiful word-music, _thought Selena as she closed the book of poetry. So many of the books on the bedroom bookshelves were religious texts, and she was lucky to have seen this one: decidedly non-religious poetry. It was a relief to find something that did not speak so extensively of _blessing _and such. _Yes, _she was blessed. And all was said to be going according to God's plan. She knew her religion and did not needed to be reminded of it time again and again, then again some more.

After several hours of reading at her little desk, this pale-haired girl in black dress stood up and walked towards the window. A nearby wooden stool floated a bit up off of the carpet: floating behind her. And when she came to the large window itself, she made the stool come to rest on the floor. She was becoming more skilled and at ease with her expanded abilities; now she did not even have to look at nearby objects to have them float or move.

She sat down atop the stool and adjusted her skirt. This high-necked black dress of hers was made of something not quite cotton, even with black cuffs and collar. At least it felt more comfortable than the red gown she was dressed in after coming from the hospital, a flimsy gown that felt more like ceremonial dressing than clothing. It would have been nice to have something to wear on her feet, though. All of her clothes and anything else she had acquired was gone due to her latest transition: no car, no house, and certainly none of her money. As the saying went, _You can't take it with you._

As for the hospital slippers Miss Gauche had taken them as well, insisting that they were not needed. But Selena could read another reason for Miss Gauche taking the footwear; she did not want Selena running away any time soon. Selena could do things with her mind: have objects hurled or things destroyed by just _thinking _about it. Yet protecting her own two little feet from cuts and injuries: likely to occur while running through forests or on country roads: was beyond her abilities. And since the land was extensively contaminated now, any cuts or wounds would certainly be a great deal worse elsewhere.

Out there was freedom, beyond the window: a _locked _window. But there was no way around this. Selena certainly couldn't float; she wasn't an angel or a ghost. Miss Gauche may address her as if she was an angel, speaking to her as if she was an angel yet treating her like a child-prisoner. Well, she _was _a child again, physically at least. Yet she retained her mind: an adult's sensibilities and more. What business was this in trapping her within this room: with those damned _gold_ chains over the door as well?

This was entrapment, being caged. It would be so nice to just to drift out the window and float away… It was times like this that she wished she could. She was trapped in this dim mansion bedroom on the second floor: trapped again. Gray-toned light glowed through the window from outside, through a thickly clouded sky. This was _the _window, because there was just this one window for her to look through. Miss Gauche had put Selena in this bedroom again: this exquisitely furnished prison. Out there and across the grounds was the fog-misted forest-land. Mr. Longhorn possessed a great deal of land, his territory. Yet it was Miss Gauche who oversaw the tending of the grounds and the actions of the servants. Right now, the tall red-haired woman in black dress was overseeing the labor of big men-things in burgundy-colored jumpsuits, with black sacks tied and worn over their heads. Like the maid-things, they were _blessed _as well.

_Wo-o-ogh…!_ A chorus of vaguely human voices moaned in her head."_Ah!_" she exclaimed as a…_thick…red haze of pain slammed into her head. She fell off of the wooden stool and to the bedroom carpeting: where she curled herself and clutched her head: lengths of her long moon-silk hair sprawled about head and shoulders like the wingspan of a bird. In her own head… In her own head, she could h-h-hear the anger of Deniers growling within her mind. They were communicating to her._

Though miles away, their thoughts were as clear and obvious as nuclear-white heat in a desert. They were in the fogged forest-land close to the border: their human-looking faces looking at a red-hot engine. The Deniers were damned angry, growlingly angry, about what was interfering with their Great Works of Progress in this world. Something from this world resisted the Progress. Such was blasphemy! Satyagraha!

Eklric, oodle-drip! "_Be gone from my mind!_" _she wailed before her mouth tightened in agony: her lips stretched back and eyes clenched shut. _"_Be gone one and all! Be gone, be gone, be…gone! Ah-h-h…_" _Having expelled the air from her lungs, her body was then gripped by seizures, a mad spasm-driven tantrum: hitting the floor with fast feet and twitching hands balled into little fists. As the pain continually filled her head, her movements were becoming involuntary. The Deniers' heads were beginning to vibrate. Wo-o-ogh…! The pain was everything.!_

…

Selena's mind was so consumed with the red pain in her head that she did not notice the gold chains over the door being retracted through slots in the wall. The door opened, and in walked Miss Gauche: accompanied by five of the maid-things with red veils over their faces. Selena managed to control her bodily spasms just long enough to glance at one of the maid-things reaching for her. There was a growl in the air… _Wham!_ One of the maid-things was hurled against a far wall of the bedroom by something unseen, sinking to the floor. The veil over its face was partially lifted and revealed darkened lumps and bony growths beneath. One of the other maid-things hesitated after having seen this display of _blessed _power.

"Seize her while she is distracted!" declared Miss Gauche, the sound of clinking beneath clothes as she pointed. Of course, Miss Gauche herself was physically protected she could not be touched by Selena's influences. The maid-things wagged their heads and staggered over to the girl writhing and twisting on the floor. One of them quickly bent over to grab Selena's ankles and began to drag her over towards the bed. It was only able to drag Selena close to the bed but not onto the bed itself. The chains were made of brass…

"Allow me to handle the child now. You know full well that you cannot approach the bed-restraints!" snapped the tall woman. There was the sound of hissing and chattering beneath the maid-thing's red veil as it staggered back. Miss Gauche stepped forward and bodily lifted the girl in seizures

She then lowering the girl onto the bed. "Do hold still, you wayward soul!" she shouted as she put her right hand firmly on the girl's tensed abdomen. She then used her free hand to flick aside lengths of Selena's hair: as so she could put a velvet-lined cuff around the girl's now-exposed neck. This caused the girl's seizure to slow into a mere agonized writhing. It was then much easier to fasten the other velvet-lined cuff: two of them secured Selena's bare ankles, the other two around wrists. With Selena fully restrained, Miss Gauche raised her hands upward and closed her eyes…

A very large blotch appeared in the left-side wall. The blotch in the wall darkened and moistened. Lumps began to stretch and swell, gigantic blisters. Several of the liquid-filled oily blisters swelled and popped, then more of them did so: leaving gaping holes of darkness in the wall that belched puffs of red smoke. Something swayed in that smoke.

It staggered out, a being that resembling a man in a stained lab-coat. Except the face of the doctor-thing looked as if it had been made of melting wax, parts of the forehead drooping down to the eyelids and cheeks, with parts of the cheeks also flopping downward. Worse yet were the two tubular objects in its hands: rust-covered hypodermic syringes with needles thick as pencils and dripping gray fluids from the tips. Wherever drops of liquid splashed to the carpeted floor, it made hissing sounds and ate into the carpet itself. The doctor-thing staggered towards the bed: gripping those long sharp syringes.

Even through her pain, Selena was vaguely aware of the terrible thing staggering towards this bed. She wanted to get away, get away, get _a-a-away!_ Except that there was no escape as the doctor-thing raised one of the gigantic syringes and brought it slamming down towards her abdomen. She couldn't even scream.

It pierced her abdomen and went deep into her body. It felt like liquid fire, fire on top of pain as the rusty needle punctured skin and muscle, going into her body. When that one was emptied, the doctor-thing yanked it out, then thrust the other needle into the same wound. The fiery burning liquid spread even more pain from her abdomen and outward: both spreading along her legs and up her chest and shoulders: coming to her head and send her burningly into unconsciousness. As her eyes closed and everything faded into mottled darkness, she was somewhat aware of the doctor-thing staggered back towards the wall.

"_There!_" expressed Miss Gauche, "Now we shall see the results of physical discipline!" She stepped back to look at the handiwork. The girl was now fully restrained by the five cuffs attached to brassy chains, and there was a coin-sized ragged hole in the thin black dress: over the abdomen. The patch of exposed skin was mottled with a bruise, surrounding a finger-thick puncture-wound that leaked clear reddish fluid. An especially brutal measure, but it worked: The girl's rowdiness had been silenced.

Some rowdiness was to be expected as the girl grew rapidly in her power. Yet she would have to learn _discipline _to control that power if it was to be of any use on the Day_. Discipline _was of very high priority to Miss Gauche: especially that of religious discipline. It was her specialty. And it was for that reason that Mr. Longhorn had requested her services. _Discipline _was necessary now more than ever as the day was so very close.

…

_The florescent yellow-tinged light of dawn shone through the café windows. Except, the beauty of the morning light was lost and distorted through the thick fogs outside: such fogs that remained from last night. And the windows were thickened with dark reddish grime and grit: windows against which were placed several tables. Even by the dim and sickened sunlight, one could see that the tables were just as filthy: grease and dried blood atop each. The painted wooden mannequins did not seem to mind, however. They continued to sit at the tables, built and dressed to resemble people. There was a sudden gust of wind outside, and one of the mannequins disappeared._

_There was a slow and tortured sque-e-eeal-l-l of rusty metal hinges as the green-eyed girl stepped out the back-kitchen of this darkened café: morning-colored light shining through the large picture-windows. She was dressed in a somewhat playful outfit green shorts and a sleeveless shirt: blue shoes on her feet. The shoes made hard gritty sounds as she stepped, strands of her moon-pale hair fluttering. This further revealed the dark and grotesque bruise around her neck, which matched the bruises around her wrists and ankles. She could feel her dear Sister's pain as if it was her own._

Yet the feeling of pain was not as strong as it should have been. The connection between herself and Selena was being weakened due to contamination. And if she was far too contaminated, then the four riders would certainly be justified in destroying Selena… The girl looked over at the café door, making unseen hands open to the fog-ridden street outside…

…

Was it a dream? Consciousness came too slowly and painfully…at first. Her eyes open, Selena saw the ornate wood-paneled ceiling: lit by the low glow of an incandescent lamp. She was now fully aware of the velvet-lined band of metal around her neck: aching with dull warmth and pain. She could also feel the two cuffs around her ankles and those holding her wrists. There was no need to look, able to feel and sense the strength and bonding power of the cuffs. These cuffs… They were doing more than merely holding her body to this bed: They also restrained her abilities: causing her a headache. Yet she could still sense someone else nearby. "Why have you done this?" she asked aloud, trying to turn her head. She tentatively tried using her mind-touch to remove the one around her neck… "_Uh!_" she gasped. Trying to do _that _only made the cuff around her neck become hot. It also worsened her slight headache. Like the gold chains that had been at her door, these were resistant to her efforts. "Why am I unable to remove these bonds? Why do such metals affect me so?" she asked aloud. "It is because you continue to contaminate me, is that not correct?"

__

"Why do you insist upon calling it _contamination?_" asked Miss Gauche. The woman was seated at the head of the bed: her back to the incandescent lamp illuminating this bedroom room. It was the only light here now since the other lights were out. Even the large picture-window across the way was darkened: sheer darkness beyond the glass. The wind was either stilled or could not be heard, making it quiet enough for Selena to hear the ghostly faint sounds of distantly thrumming machinery. "You are becoming _blessed_, child. Except the _blessing_ is within, already seeded within your body. Why not allow it to spread?"

"_I shall not!_" she yelled, and the incandescent light-bulb of the lamp flickered: sounds of electricity buzzing. Small bedroom furniture began to move. Some books on the bookshelf began to pull out. The cuff around her neck began to warm up as if in prelude to more heat: a sort of warning for her not to try what she was going to do. She didn't care, beginning to intensify her thoughts! "_I would much prefer to… Uh?_" Whatever she was going to say was cut off when the band tightened enough to squeeze her throat closed, and all of the miscellaneous activity around the room stopped. Something unseen above the bed made a _snarling _sound.

Miss Gauche stood up: her full height seeming even taller as her shadow spread out across the rest of the bedroom floor and against the far wall with the window. "Child, why do you resist the _blessing_?" Selena could only respond with gagging and wheezing sounds as the heated cuff continued to squeeze her neck, also squeezing her ankles and wrists. "As the _blessing _grows within your body, your mind will only become stronger." She turned to point to Selena. "Yet it will take _discipline _to control that which you are gaining. Your powers are needed: your powers controlled under the stern guidance of myself and the watchful eye of Samuel Longhorn. Note how your uncontrolled emotions are only causing you _pain_ and _suffering!_ Disciplinewill guide your path, be it to further _blessing…_or contamination."

Realization made Selena's green eyes go wide with surprise: making them seem even larger. _Miss Gauche is correct,_ she thought. It was the _contamination _that was causing her to lose control of herselfShe relaxed, allowing herself to become calm. This caused the miscellaneous activity in the room to stop happening: the swaying furniture, the moving books in the bookshelves, the slight breezes. The brass bonds also relented: becoming cool and not as tight again. Letting her emotions go out-flung and free could only mean that she was becoming contaminated: succumbing to the intents of what was being done to her. "I accept your statement, Miss Gauche," said Selena.

"Excellent!" responded the tall woman. "You will yet prove yourself worthy of being a princess to Mr. Longhorn's kingdom-to-be. He will be pleased to know of this. To show my faith in you, I shall release you from the bonds." She then moved over to the bed and bent over Selena: sounds of golden jewelry still clinking under clothes. The wrist-cuffs were first undone. Moving to the left, the woman unlatched the ones on the ankles. Looking into Selena's eyes, she then undid the cuff around the neck.

Only when Miss Gauche stepped back and away did Selena slowly sit up. She moved over to the edge of the bed and sat with knees together. It took a quick toss of her head and a few strokes of her fingers before the silken lengths of her hair was neat again. Her ankles, wrists and neck still ached: especially her neck: but the pain was fading quickly. Selena resisted the temptation to rub what were undoubtedly bruises and instead put her hands in her lap. She looked up when Miss Gauche began to move towards the door.

"As faithful as I am," began the tall woman as she stood by the door, "I cannot shrug off my responsibility of being your disciplinarian. It is for the good of everyone involved. I trust that you understand." She then stepped out, closing the bedroom door and locking it. At least this time, the golden chains were not set back into place: leaving the locking mechanism of the gold doorknob left to imprison the girl.


	9. CHAPTER NINE

__

Silent Hill: The Dream Machine

by Elliot Bowers

…

Chapter 9

…

The light of day cast brightness on everything: though it was a brightness made obscured by the wafting drifts of fog along the street… A patrol car was parked across the street from of the hospital as so a look out through the left side of the windshield gave a view of the entrance. Coming closer, one would see that the metallic gleam of this particular vehicle was being dulled and ruined with streaks of rust, the windshield slightly dusted with reddish grit. Yet those were just exterior signs of rust and trouble with the vehicle. There was no such trouble within this car's interior or with the engine, because its insides were protected by the appropriate components. There were strips of brass and electromechanical parts connected to the car's electrical system: a repellent to the contaminationThe cylindrical resonators mounted on the car's roofhad similar components.

"Beautiful… Tha-a-at's just _beautiful_," said the janitor in the driver's seat. Both he and the other janitor were in the proper uniform: of burgundy colored overalls and long-sleeved red work-shirt. He was staring through the windshield, out at the fog. "Look at that! It's three o'clock, full daylight. The fog is still strong here: hasn't been burned away yet!" He smiled a big smile. "The big Day's almost here!"

The other janitor smiled. "You don't have to tell me, buddy! Just look at these hands of mine! They got even better since last night!" He held up his hands close to the windshield as so the fog-filtered daylight could illuminate them better: showing more of the details. The details of his hands showed certain…changes. There were thick, hard lumps and bumps growing all inside the discolored, reddened skin. Worse still was how one hand seemed to be worse than the other. The left hand actually had clusters and lumps of tumors: with little knobby horns growing out of them and spouting gray hairs. The lumps on the right hand were smaller and softer. But likely, with time, both hands would come to develop the same condition. That would be because the growths would actually metastasize throughout the rest of his body. He was actually looking forward to it. "If you look really, _re-e-eally _close, you can see little things swimming under the skin, too! I think they're stronger, too. A lot stronger."

"Wa-hey! Congratulations to you!" cheered the janitor in the driver's seat, and he meant it. He actually did see very small things moving in the other guy's hands. "I'll tell you what… If it spreads up your hands, I bet Mr. Longhorn will _personally _congratulate you. Who knows, maybe you'll get to meet the catalyst, too!"

"Hah, I wish!" responded the other janitor. He lowered his hands. "But I don't care about those kinds of rewards. What matters to me is how _it's gonna happen! _It's almost here, too. Think about it… Eternal bliss. No more pain. No more hunger… Everything's going to be alright. I'm already feeling it. We all will. As the fog gets thicker and Mr. Longhorn keeps working with those wonderful guys with six arms… _Ach!_" He wretched, his eyes going wide. Suddenly, he was no longer so jovial. "_Damn! _Did you feel that? Something just happened. Hear it?"

__

"What, _what?_" asked the janitor in the driver's seat. "I don't…" _R-r-r-rumble…_ "Never mind. I _do _hear it. Sounds like those big black motorcycles again!" Using those distorted hands of his, he flicked a switch on the dashboard. "That's okay, we'll just have to let the _animals _show them a good time!"

There was soon a deep sound of vibration from the car's roof as the cylindrical resonators mounted to the patrol car's roof began to hum and vibrate. Most of the sound it actually produced was beyond the range of human hearing. And it was that sound that was picked up by _animals _for at least six miles around. Simultaneously, the janitor in the driver's seat felt his _blessed _hands become pleasantly warm: as if they had become seductive organs of pleasure and a feeling of euphoria washed over him. So what if they were coming? Everything would be _ju-u-ust fine…_

The rumbling sound of the bikes suddenly became so intense that it washed out the vibrating hum of the resonators on the roof. Four great big motorcycles emerged from nearby, from the fog: with the riders on them riding with their left hands on left handlebars. All of them used their right to brandish their particular weapon…especially the dark biker of the nunchaku. This dark biker veered off the path of his comrades to make a ride-by pass at the patrol car, flailing his weapon downward… _Wham-m-m!_

There was then a _squealing _of tires as the dark biker of the weighted nunchaku did a u-turn to get back to the others. The deed was done. Now the resonators mounted atop the patrol car's roof had been crushed: just as the rest of the vehicle was just as flattened. This vehicle was crushed to such an extent that the top of the roof was now within feet of the ground. All four tires had popped. Of course the car's suspension was wrecked, along with the drive-train, the chassis, the frame, the interior…

Hell, it was as if an invisible grand fist struck from above to crush the vehicle as if it was an empty aluminum can of soda-pop! Except this particular hunk of hollowed metal once housed two human occupants and a great deal of automotive engineering. No doubt, the bodies of the two occupants probably now had the physical consistency of raspberry jam. And _thus _was the fate of those who dared to stand in the way of the four!

Other janitors parked nearby heard the motorcycles, heard the destructive ruckus of a car being crushed, and they were just now getting quickly out of their patrol cars, not even stopping to turn on their own resonators. They saw the bikers come out of nowhere in the fog. The fog itself was not enough to totally hide the massive destructive event. And therefore, the fog was no obstruction to their aim! So the other janitors hopped on out of their patrol cars and drew their handguns: aiming at the dark bikers that now rode in circles, brandishing their weapons.

__

Crack, crack-crack went the pistols, hard and sharp sounds in the soft and wafting fog. _Crack, crack-crack! _Yet nothing seemed to make the dark bikers even flinch. _Crack! Crack! _The janitors were sure that at least _some_ of their shots must have hit those great big leather-clad big men on even bigger motorcycles. How could they miss? Yet there they were, still roaring around in circles…before they steered and went _right towards the hospital front entrance. _The big guy with the scythe leading the charge: the rest riding single-file. The double-doors to the hospital _exploded_ inward, and they were in.

…

_Kablam-m-m! _"_Eigh!_" shrieked the female nurses, their slender hands covering their faces as they quickly ducked behind the reception counter. The front doors to this lobby seem to have exploded for no reason. The nurse didn't know or care why. All that mattered was that there was a very loud noise of destruction, a great deal of exploded violence, and what seemed like an indoor earthquake. They ducked under the counter and put their arms over their heads as the _r-r-rumbling _sound shook and took over everything. It was so loud and violent that the nurses felt themselves beginning to lose their hearing: a great big airful of gigantic noise that sounds like the end of the world!

The weapons-swinging figures on huge motorcycles ignored the nurses and turned left, the huge tires gripping the ceramic floor. Now their monstrous vehicles were quaking their way through the square hallway, making the corridor all full of noise and chaos. The four had ignored those nurses, yes. But they did _not _ignore those foolish obstacles that so happened to be human beings. Some janitors in red coveralls and workshirts stood right out in the middle of the way, drew their handguns and started _shooting. Crack-crack, _went their pistols: filling the hall with sharp gunshots. A few went on bended knee as so their comrades could fire over their heads. Some more janitors also came out into the hallway to add to the noisewith their own weapons. 

It didn't work, of course. The foolish janitors in red coveralls were soon made as dead as roadkill pancakes: knocked down and squashed flat by the great big wheels of the bikes. Some were killed even _before_ they could reach for their weapons. A few doctors in professional clothes and white coats began shouting. _You can't come here! _Their shouts were lost to the rumbling noise of the big bikes. Hopping up and down and gesticulating did nothing, either. Then the dark biker of the odd rifle took aim …

There was a frightfully intense flash, and those doctors in the way suddenly became blackened ash-statues right where they stood. These statues were blasted to pieces when the dark bikers continued on through. Someone farther down the hall had even wheeled out wheelchairs and hospital equipment on cards. Yet even these improvised barricades were obliterated: along with even more janitors and doctors.

There were elevator doors up ahead, a sealed one. A dark lead-metal plate had been screwed over the elevator buttons. Red chains were laced and woven over the elevator doors. It would seem, then, that whomever or whatever sealed the elevator did so to prevent any of the foolish locals from using it.

Too bad, the dark bikers were not locals: not from around here. So the seal on the elevator doors could _not _be for them! So they accelerated their great big motorcycles and proceeded to _speed towards the door. This hallway became a vibrating blur as the gigantic vehicles rammed their way beyond elevator doors: which crumpled inward. All four went in…_

And the hall…returned to silence. Gone was the sharp cracking sounds of pistols in this hard-floored long space. Gone was the gigantic quaking rumble of the massive vehicles that rampaged through the hallway. There was no longer all of that speed, noise and insane chaos shaking things up. Yet the damage was done, the chaos rendered. The proof of the dark bikers having been through here was strewn all about. Destroyed hospital equipment was along the hall, dead bodies on the floor, and all of it formed debris to line the way.

Yes they were _gone, _thank goodness: having gone into the elevator. No more people would be dying here. At least that was true for the time being. One of the florescent lights in the ceiling began to flicker as the elevator…_at the end began to go down. _They were gone, but their business was not yet finished.

…

_This subterranean room…_actually existed beneath the hospital itself: lit with bulbous-shaped lamps that gave off a blood-colored glow. It really was a glow as the lamps barely provided enough…light to see by, barely enough light to see the square shapes of engines built into the left-side wall: all of the walls covered with hammered metal plates. These plates were all jumbled and pounded together as if to block out radiation. Except that interpretation would be wrong: The plates were actually in place to keep the radiation _in, _keep it at a high concentration. It would help these engines run better and hotter even though the hospital above had plenty of blood and electricity with which to run things. Blood came through the pipes, and electricity came through the cables.

And the Deniers crawled along the floor, walls and ceilings as they continued their work by the glow of the dim, blood-colored lamps. Their human-like heads vibrated with activity as their multiple arms used tools. The engines needed constant adjustment and work if they were to work properly here. "_Erg-ach! Arjac… Krek-latta!_" squealed one of the Deniers, doing something with a rust-coated tool as blood and sparks spurted from a pipe connecting an engine to the ceiling. Four more deniers crawled over in the shadows to quickly attack the problem of leaking blood from the pipe.

_Ding! _Elevator doors quivered: doors that were _supposed _to have been covered over with huge lead metal plates. Somehow, the lead plates were gone. And somehow, something had arrived. As those doors slowly parted, bright golden light seared into this place from in there and cast everything in a sunlight-colored glow. Out came the four dark bikers, roaring on their gigantic motorcycles as they began to ride around in this room: riding in a clockwise circle. The one of the great scythe motored his way to the center: running over at least three Deniers as the other bikers destroyed and pillaged the rest of this nasty place.

"_Elkric!_" Things were going all wrong all of a sudden. That was too much light! And there was too much noise, too much to interfere with the continued operation of the engines here. Amidst this brightly illuminated chaos, the Deniers clearly knew that there was no winning here! "_Oblama al alar-r-r!_" grunted one of the surviving six-armed beings, one of them crawling along the wall. Those beings were setting their tools to use on one of the metal plates. Red-colored smoke began to billow out from behind there as they made progress. Then the dark biker of the scythe looked in their direction and made them _stop-p-p. _Those Deniers were dead so suddenly that their bodies were stopped in mid-motion.

The other dark bikers completed the destruction of this places. It was not long before the engines were chopped, smashed, blasted to pieces and generally _obliterated_. Even the pieces were wrecked and destroyed. The machines were now just as wrecked and ruined as the creatures that operated them, just as broken and just as dead. Stumps of amputated pipes projected from the walls where the machines had been installed, making for cylindrical holes that oozed red wet blood.

…

The discolored fog outside the hospital began to go away: the air being cleared and free. Though there was still fog elsewhere along the street, the immediate area round this building had clear and crisp air. Nurses blinked their eyes as they staggered out into the sunlight that shone brightly. "_Thrice, they are punished!_" screamed one of the dark bikers, a growling shout that made the nurses cringe and cower. They then heard the sound of those motorcycles rumbling off into the fog.

…

2.

…

At the estate, deep within the mansion, Samuel Longhorn was within the main seat of his grand office: seated at his mahogany wooden desk. He was dressed in a crumpled tuxedo and read buttoned-silk shirt, the bowtie askew and the black dress-jacket unbuttoned. Along with an empty bottle streaked with red, the top of the desk was covered with scattered papers and notes blotched with red stains. That was no surprise since the rest of the desk was becoming just as nasty to look at: the desktop smeared with a layer of urine-colored grease mixed with dark red blood, the blood peppered with bits of rust. Or maybe it was just that dried blood so happened to resemble rust. Ironically, the scattered and red-blotched papers atop the desk were the only clean things here. All the other miscellaneous materials atop the desk were immersed in the mess. There was a Geiger counter somewhere among the mess, except it was so thoroughly inundated with grime and rot that it was ruined: the dial-face blackened out as if burnt from within.

The desk was only the epicenter of what had happened to the rest of this office. The reddish, rust-powdered gunk of grease and rust covered everything in a thick layer. Bookshelves and cabinets were smeared and coated with greasiness and dried dark red. A shell-bodied thing the size of a mouse crawled out of a hole in the wall and skittered along the ceiling to disappear in through another wall, knowing that it did not belong here yet. Those paintings on the walls were so dirty that they began to resemble the sort of inkblots shown to the insane to check their minds: though these inkblots looked as if an equally insane man had his hand in the design. Of course the carpeted floor was similarly nasty: a once-soft silk carpet now stiff and soaked with the thick grime.

A trio of Deniers crawled out from underneath Samuel Longhorn's desk: crawling past his legs and around him. One of the things had brought a boxy red-plastic radio, except the device was modified as so the back was removed. Now its exposed insides had what looked like a slab of rotten meat jammed in, then lashed with several loops of rusty barbed wire and clock-springs. It was this mutilated device that one of the Deniers carried over to Mr. Longhorn's desk: held up in one of its six hands. Since the carpet was greasy, it was easy for them to crawl along it.

_Clunk-k-k! _That was the sound of the nasty little radio being _slammed _onto the desk by one of the Denier's hands as if to angrily present it to Mr. Longhorn. The man jerked and gave a start, his body twitching once in reaction to the sudden noise. But he did nothing else. His head lolled side-to-side. A line of drool oozed out of his mouth. Slowly, his eyes twisted in his head until they looked at that which was delivered. There was something about that radio now…

_Click! _Another one of the Deniers quickly turned on the little thing. Their heads began to vibrate as hissing static came out of the thing's speaker. Some little tendrils of smoke drifted out from the rotten flesh in the radio, but that was okay because the little red-plastic radio: now thoroughly altered: would work just fine. Just listen to it.

_Bzzt! Hiss-s-s-s… _"_Hey-hey-y-y!_" blared the radio, the radio announcer sounding quick, loud and enthusiastic as if everything was awesome. "_It's another rockin', clockin' hour here on YSEC Radio: the last radio station in the world! At least this world! Everything here's looking really fine after those nice guys from that Other place fixed it up for us. Just look at that! The sky's a nice blood-red color, everyone's staggerin' along and looking a little different since being blessed. Best of all, the birds are showing their true colors. I always knew birds were supposed to look like that…. Hell, who needs native wildlife, anyway? Things are just looking better and better all the damned time! Ha-ha-ha… Get it; get it? Damned! Aah-ha-ha-ha… Ach! You'll have to excuse me, all you listeners out there in radio-land. I'm not fully blessed yet, so of course my voice is going to be just a little bit nasty every now and then. Not fully blessed, But I'm getting there, ha-ha-ha… Da-a-amn yeah!_"

__

Uh-huh… Mr. Longhorn just dumbly nodded, his head lolling to the side. _Sure, Mr. Radio-Man, you just say whatever you want. _He just numbly and dumbly listened to everything the radio had to say. But somewhere at the back of his mind, back where he still retained some coherent sense of mind, he had the idea that something was very wrong.

__

"_Speaking of wildlife, there's one w-w-w-wild party animal somewhere out there who really knows how to screw things up! The story goes a little something like this, folks! There was a really rich man who was given a whole great big b-b-bunch of responsibility. Those same great guys who fixed our world for us decided to give the rich man a co-starring role in making the world over. And if he played his cards right, ha-ha, he would've been pretty much made one of the most important human beings on the planet! Notice, I said human, because we all know who the real masters are! Yes indeed, all he had to do was make sure that those sweet engines were kept safe and that everybody respected the religion._

"You know what happened, then? What happens when you give a big rich man a whole bunch of responsibility he's never had before in his life? Uh-huh! That's right! He failed! Oh-h-h, ye-e-ah! Now the rich man's gonna have Hell to pay for screwing up! Everybody give a great big 'Hello' to…Samuel Longhorn!"

_Uh-huh, _nodded Mr. Longhorn_… _A section of the right-side wall opened up to reveal a little side-room perhaps the size of a walk-in closet: a grotesque closet. The walls were all painted black and spattered with blotches of brown: patches of dried blood. Hanging from the ceiling was an upside-down severed pig's head, wires going through the neck-stump and a lightbulb socket wired in the mouth. The light bulb was a glowing glass apple in there, providing illumination for the rest of the little room. It provided enough illumination to show that there was a figure hunched in the corner of this little side-room.

The figure was a doctor-thing, dressed in a once-white coat now smeared with oily black and fresh red. Its face was a sagging smear that resembled wax: except in this case, the "wax" was human flesh. It now stood up and began to stag-stag-stagger out of there. Thick-soled footwear made for clomping heavy footsteps. And it was carrying a black leather bag.

"_So the rich guy screwed up, so what?_" cheered the voice on the radio. "_We can still use him! Isn't that right, Samuel?_" _Uh huh… "What do I mean by that? Never mind! Let's just wait for one of our good friends to make Mr. Longhorn into something useful. If not, at least we can use his body: because one of our little friends is going to take Mr. Samuel Longhorn for a ride!_" 

The doctor-things black carry-bag squirmed and wriggled. Something was in there. Then the doctor-thing _dropped _the black bag on the desk, grabbed Mr. Longhorn by the hair, and _yanked _the rich man's head forward. This now made him lean forward and face-down on the grimy desk, his jacket-covered back and the back of his neck now exposed. One grotesque hand still gripping Samuel's head, the other hand opened up the black bag and took out the creature within it.

It was something that resembled a rat-sized red slug. The lower part of its body was flat, and the top was a rounded-over hump. Except, this slug had a _face_. The mouth gaped open with lots of sharp little teeth, the little round eyes squinted black, and its mouth worked. It squirmed in anticipation as the doctor-thing placed it onto the back of Mr. Longhorn's neck. This slug-thing then flattened itself as so it could slide into the space between Mr. Longhorn's neck and the back of his collar. It worked its way under the clothes until it found a nice comfortable place on his upper-back…where it began to attach itself…

"_Ach…_" choked Mr. Longhorn. He choked, his head jerking once before his neck went limp. He limp-staggered to his feet, standing with back hunched forward and head down. The lump on his upper-back was clearly visible now, and a head poked out from the back of his collar: its two beady little eyes looking at the door out of this office as it guided Mr. Longhorn's body to walk towards it.

"_There he goes, folks! It's been a ball, Mr. Longhorn. But we don't ne-e-e-ed you anymore! Don't feel bad. At least you've got your consolation prize. Now you're going to go out there and have talk with the Four Riders! Good luck, and don't forget to bring along a nice sturdy bludgeoning weapon. Not that it'll do you a lick of good, but try it anyway! This is YSEC radio, signing off! See you all some other time! And remember: Eklric, oblama, satyagraha-a-a!…_"

…

Some time later, the figure of Samuel Longhorn: in a ruined tuxedo and with red stuff oozing from his drooling mouth: was gagging and staggering along a residential street. His vision was hazed over with a severe red, and a haze of fiery pain filled him from the neck-down. That didn't matter much as he could not even raise his head or straighten his back. Something was damned wrong with him. He didn't know what, though. Everything just hurt so damned much. It hurt even worse when he tried to stop walking: making the muscles in his legs hurt like burning chemically treated rubber bands that oozed acid. Suffice to say that it felt like torture.

He had the vague idea of making his way to the hospital. There he could maybe have one of the doctors surgically remove this damned thing on his back. The thing most likely had grown veins to connect to some of his organs. And the thing had long since attached itself to his spinal cord: which would probably explain a lot of things. Where the Hell did the Deniers get this back-riding creature, anyway? They didn't tell _him _about it. If they did, he would have found uses for them and done a better job. Now the little thing was using _him_. It wouldn't let him stop walking or reach back to yank it off. Any time he tried to move his arms up, there was that punishing feeling again.

So walk on he did, moving jerkily along. With every step, he fully expected to fall over and black out: fall to the road and not get up again. He tried to guide his own staggering over to the sidewalk only to feel that acid-burning rubber-bands feeling over his abdomen and even his neck: making his head jerk around a few times.

Oh, Hell! He'd never try _that _again! So stagger along the street it was, then. He made his weaving and wavy gravy walking progress back to the middle of the residential street. But he had a chance to get glimpses of the surrounding area when his head had been jerked around due to the neck spasms before he looked to the ground again. This was indeed a residential area, one of those rows of houses that were bordered by swaths of woods or bordering forests. It was just hard for him to recognize because he had his head down and there were no cars hereabouts.

No cars meant that the people of this street were gone… They were just as gone as the fog around here: which was not present. The fog, the people, their cars, they were all out of here… _Cowards, _he thought. They were foolish not to stay until the Day of the Descent. That was _especially _foolish since the Day was so damned _soon_ and _near! _As soon as he made it to the hospital and had himself fixed up, he'd get back to his mansion and have Miss Gauche more intensely prepare the catalyst and _the_…_engines_…

As soon as he thought that, a _twinge _of pain-filled spasm _yanked _his upper back: making for a cracking sound as joints in the vertebrae were stressed. "_Ach!_" he exclaimed, a sound of pain. What, now the thing on his back could read his thoughts through the spinal cord? He didn't feel any mental connection to it. Or maybe the connection was a one-way sort of deal.

There was the sound of footsteps at his right: running steps. They had to be doctors or nurses, just had to be! He tensed himself and began walking _towards…the…right_. _The pain! _There was that feeling of acid-burning rubber bands up the back of his legs and all around his neck: making his head jerk and flap all over theplace. Hell, he didn't care! He was _trying…to yell for help, though all that came out of his mouth was a bunch of gurgling…_and choking sounds. He even managed to stop staggering. Those running footsteps were finally here. Good, it was _help!_

"What the Hell!" exclaimed a young woman's voice. "God… Look at that thing, Laura! It's another one of those zombies with something growing on its back! Let's kill it!" _Oh God, no…_ They weren't doctors or nurses. "I'm not just running out of here without getting revenge! You! Ugly things like _you _are the reasons why this town got all screwed up! If you think we're just going to run away like everyone else and not look back, you're wrong!" The young woman's footsteps came closer, then the other. Since his head was still down, he just had a look at a pair of smooth legs extending down from a short jeans-skirt, straight thighs, with calves encased in black leather boots. The other girl was wearing tight jeans and sneakers. The one with the skirt had a fresh, shiny metal axes with metal handles and red-painted blades. _Fire axes, _they were called: the sorts of axes mounted in hospitals or police stations to hack down doors in case of emergency. The other one had an aluminum baseball bat, which he saw go raised up out of his line of sight.

_Wham! _"Ach!" he chokingly exclaimed as the metal bat came down. At least he knew where it went. Now his entire body tensed. "Look, hit the thing on its back! That's the zombies' weak-spot!" _Wham! _"See?"

The pretty young woman in the skirt, also the one with the axe, took a step forward. He didn't see the axe she had since his head was still down. Thank goodness he couldn't see it anymore: couldn't even control himself enough to look up. There was no getting away as something else hit him high up on his back where the thing was stuck. It must have been the axe, because now he felt himself falling to the street.

Now his view was sideways, his head turned to look at the girls. _They've struck you, _mentally cheered Samuel as he thought of the damage being rendered to the creature on his back: _in _his back. _You should have let me control myself!_

The girl in jeans-skirt and sleeveless shirt raised the axe she had, brought it down, and there was the _chunk _sound of something hitting him on the back. This time, it bit into his backbone: He was sure of it. He couldn't even feel the pain anymore. All there was now was a vague feeling of something tapping him on the back. It must have been the other girl: the one with the bat. The axe, the bat, it didn't matter what was hitting him now. He wad _done. _At least now he could lie here on the street and just die. _Swish… Chunk!_

"Eww! _Gross!_" screamed one of the girls. "Now it's like gushing gray slimy stuff all over the place! It doesn't even have real blood! " _Wham! _"Hey, Mr. Zombie, why the Hell aren't you dead yet? We hit your weak spot, like…a hundred times already!" The girl with the short skirt hiked it up nearly to her hips and raised her right foot, exposing a lot of her thighs in the process. "What, do we have to _stomp _you, too? O-o-okay…!" She then brought the heel of her right leather boot down onto the thing on Samuel's back.

It made his entire body arch as he lie here: seeing everything sideways. Nothing really hurt much anymore. That was especially true since the thing on his back was getting to be as dead as he was, soon enough. It was chopped and bludgeoned probably until it resembled road kill now. _Thank you, girls,_ he wanted to say. _You've removed quite a burden from off my back. That's literally true! Ha-ha-ha…_ _For that, I'll love you until the end of the world._

_But since death was closing over him, he could not say any of that aloud. As the girls walked away, he felt himself going down into the darkness all full of humming and noise rackety noises. Something was coming for him. Now he wasn't so sure he wanted to die. Then they would really be able to get him: getting him worse than they already had._

…

_The rackety sound reached a crescendo as a glowing cloud of fog began to form around a nearby streetlamp. Though it was still noon, the overcast sky covered with iron-gray clouds, the streetlamp flick-flickered on… Whoomph! Something came down to land on both feet. It was the doctor-thing with the half-melted face. It staggered over to where Samuel Longhorn lie dead. Or perhaps it was "dead" in deliberate quotation marks. Death is a lie._

The doctor-thing bent over and reached for Samuel Longhorn: reached into his body. Then the doctor-thing gave a hard y-y-yank and pulled something out of the body, something invisible. There seemed to be nothing in its hands, nothing to be seen, but that great deal of nothing was hard to grip. That doctor-thing had taken something _energetic._

And the thing was put in the doctor-thing's black leather bag: zipped shut. Wa-a-agh, wa-a-agh… A-a-aia-a-agh! Muffled and distorted screams came from in there, and the bag wriggled and squirmed all the more. The doctor-thing held the bag in its right claw-hand, then used it used its left arm and legs to climb its way back up the streetlamp. Then it shimmied along the neck of the streetlamp in getting over to the light fixture: into the crawling right up into the light fixture itself: taking the wriggling black bag and the muffled screams along with it.. Yes indeed, the doctor-thing had certainly taken something very, very precious from Samuel Longhorn's corpse.

…

3.

…

_Lying on her back, Miss Gauche's long, dark-clad body was relaxed: her arms folded across her bosom and her eyes closed. This was within the mansion, a side-room with a golden doorknob and brass lock on the door. There was a bookcase, an armchair and a sofa for relaxed contemplation of miscellaneous religious texts. Except now, there was something else religious occurring here._

The figure of the woman was deathly still. Because her dress was spotlessly cleaned and always freshly dyed, the dark cloth was like that of a flowing cloth shadow. There was not a sound from her as she lie on the sofa: as if already in the grave. There was suddenly a…sharp inhaling of breath, and she opened her eyes: becoming oriented again to being in her body. A smile came to her lips, a smile that matched her inner thoughts. She knew what had just happened. Well, now there would no longer be _that _foolish man to be in the way: no more interference from a man. He was foolish in that he chose the entirely wrong way of dealing with those who were the source of blessing 

Sinner, she thought as she pivoted herself sideways to lower her hard-shod feet to the floor: shoes as dark as her outfit. _Sinner_, yes. Samuel Longhorn was a sinner, and he was rightfully punished for it. Getting up off of the sofa, she walked over to the low table where her protective gold jewelry was laid out. There was a great deal of it now: six necklaces of varying lengths, some smaller loops, at least three in the form of thick-linked chains.

She unbuttoned her dress and slid out of it: standing naked save for her black shoes. Nothing had been worn beneath the clothing as it would have caused interference. Now she began putting on the jewelry: a chain fastened around her slim waist and above her hips, three circular medallions around her neck, two wrist-cuffs, and more. All of it was of the brightest, purest gold available. If she was to deal with the catalyst, it was necessary for her to wear protection. Now that the catalyst was being properly prepared and becoming stronger, such precautions were becoming all the more necessary.

When the woman was sure that her body was properly draped in gold jewelry, she reached down to take up the long black dress. Her pale, slim arms went into the black sleeves. She then fastened the dark buttons to close the bodice: up to her neck. Then she went to open the lounge door: walking out. Slight sounds of clinking jewelry sounded out with every step.

…

Up above, in her third-story prison bedroom, the pale-haired girl in black dress was sitting atop the tall wooden stool again herself illuminated by fog-diffused light shining through this bedroom window. Selena now almost resembled a life-sized doll atop a pedestal. Except, the "doll" was not at all a thing of happiness, not feeling happy. Out the window was a high-up view of the rear grounds of the estate: a mist-softened daytime view of the rear grounds.

Though she was physically trapped within here, the girl's mind was adrift in thought. Her mind wandered and wondered about her purpose in being here any more. More than once, she wondered about means of escape that did not involve burning her hands on the gold doorknob. No, not even wrapping her hands in spare clothing would do any good. She had tried using her mind to open the door: only to have her efforts bounce back at her and strike her with a sharp pain in the head. Even _looking _at the gleaming, sunlight-colored metal was enough to cause her an ache…

Given her current situation, was better for her to have "escaped" that town: a place overcome by the "blessing" of the town's god? She left Silent Hill with the full intention of _not_ being blessed. She liked herself as she was. Little good it did her in the end, because now she _was _blessed: having become something else other than what she was. Now she resembled a young child. Her home was gone, no place of security and comfort. There was no safety, no security. Her life was changed and ruined, a life soon to be over. _They _were going to use her for a dark ceremony of invocation: a ceremony to bring on the Day of the Holy Descent.

Was it _Holy,_ if it was going to be used for the sake of greed and power? They were going to _use _her to facilitate what happened in that other town. It would happen all over again. And since she had the power of the religion, it was probably her fault. She folded her hands in her lap: small child-hands.

Proportionate to the rest of her, even her hands were small. Whereas she was once tall and dark-haired, mature and elegant, now she was petite and pale-haired. Now she was "cute." Perhaps she deserved this for being so selfish. After all, she herself had used a ceremony for her own personal gain: invoking some power of God before all of this. Or it was for being so foolish. She should have known that the wrath of God could reach beyond merely the borders of one town. Even going a world away was not enough to escape the reach of the religion. She could go anywhere. She could try to take over someone else's life. But she had been found out. There was likely no real escape that lasted forever. Not even death was the way. If the Day of Descent was to happen and God was brought to this world, then this would be her end: an end she probably deserved. After all, if she had not invoked the power of God…

Someone was coming: measured footsteps on the carpeted hall outside. Given the severity of the presence, it had to be Miss Gauche. _Click! _The locking mechanisms within the gold doorknob made sharp metallic sounds as they were being disengaged. Then the door itself opened to reveal _that_ tall woman in black again: her hair somehow even more red than before, even longer. Four maid-things shuffle-staggered in behind her, their red-veiled heads wagging side-to-side.

"Good afternoon, child," began the tall woman. She tilted her head to the side, almost sympathetically. "I take it that boredom and idleness must have certainly dulled your sensibilities by now, hmm? Merely having you occupy a room would simply be without purpose. You would then agree that something must be done…" She paused, again raising her head, the slight look of sympathy replaced with her typically severe expression. As if in correspondence to Miss Gauche's emotion, the four maid-things slowed their head-wagging. "Now come along, child. There is a great deal of religious instruction to be had. The grand Day itself is not terribly far off, and you must be of the proper mind-set. It would not do for you to not be in full agreement with what is to occur."

"I disagree with you," calmly responded Selena. Her voice was even, but her anger filled her mind with a red haze. She gave a glaring look to one of the maid-things, hatred in her soul as she gave a vicious thought. _Swish… Wham! _The maid-thing had been picked up and _hurled_ against the left-side wall. It collapsed to the carpeted floor to lie twitching as dark oily fluids leaked out from its once-human ears.

Selena was glad to see that her strength was indeed building. Given the excellent results of one attack, why not try another? She turned her green-eyed gaze to another one of Miss Gauche's "assistants." Another angry thought, and the maid-thing was _hurled _out through the open bedroom door by that unseen presence. A low growl sounded in the air.

Then she looked at the third maid-thing, making it go _up _towards the ceiling as that unseen force gripped its collar-hidden neck: making the creature wriggle and choke. As Selena mentally held the creature up there, she contemplated further tactics. If Miss Gauche's protective jewelry protected against _direct_ influences, then perhaps _indirect _means of attack would suffice. _Now, _she thought: making the maid-thing go _flying _at Miss Gauche…

__

But the maid-thing _bounced_ in mid-air, rebounding off of an invisible barrier and dropped to the floor. Also, she felt a twinge of headache as her maliciousness bounced back. _Oh, damn it! _So Miss Gauche was even protected against that.

Yet _how well_ was the woman protected? Did the barrier extend all around? Still feeling the slight headache from the rebound, Selena made some books, bookends and small objects come floating off of a bookshelf. There was a low _grow-w-wl _of sound up near the ceiling as the objects floated: circling Miss Gauche like a small, indoor flock of predatory birds. _Perhaps_…

"Oh, _do _stop this frivolous and _undisciplined _show of power!" berated the tall woman. She quickly swiped at the floating formation of objects, a clinking of jewelry. Some of the objects fell to the floor. "You insist upon trying to spite me with a _blessed _presence: to misuse your God-given power? Very well, then some punishment is in order." She pulled up her sleeves and began walking towards Selena: easily passing through some of the floating bric-a-brac.

There was nothing Selena could do when Miss Gauche _slapped _her across the face: making her tumble off of the stool and go sprawled on the carpeted floor. Over at the center of the bedroom, the floating objects were released from the hold of power: making them fall to the floor. The unseen presence _snarled _in anger and seemed ready to do something dark and terrible, but Selena was dazed and stunned, her head full of a low ringing sound from the blow and the proximity of so much of that metal.

"Now do you see the result of insolence?" voiced Miss Gauche. _R-r-r-rgagh… _She ignored the snarling sound that came from just behind her left shoulder. She knew that nothing could be done to her. Nothing that Selena did or summoned could harm anyone properly protected. "Insolence is met with _punishment, _a means of maintaining _discipline. _You have been an adherent to our religion since you were a child: since even before your past life. Why _now _bring up this resistance? God has many hands: seen and unseen: with which to reach out. _You,_ of a blessed and once-forgotten race, are resisting the grace of God! To resist is to bring about pain upon yourself. And all that I ask of you now is to partake in some proper understanding. Will you do that?"

_R-r-rach! _The _growl _in the air was slightly louder this time! That small group of objects floated again, and some of them were _slammed _against the wall. A wardrobe-closet rocked back and forth… Even ceiling rattled. The edges of Selena's power seethed with impatience… But she calmly answered, "I shall partake in the instruction."

"That is splendid!" cheered Miss Gauche. The maid-things that had been tossed had gotten to their feet and staggered over to stand behind the woman: far behind. They could feel the presence in the air. "Do get up and follow me. I have an excellent selection of key texts in mind. You should find them especially fascinating. It will be little compared to the glory to be had on the Day, but it is something nevertheless."

…

Out of the bedroom, they walked out through the hall that led to the grand staircase. Selena had not seen the rest of this massive house in the days she had been here. Being imprisoned within one bedroom: as large as the bedroom was: had restricted her idea of the scale of this place. As she followed Miss Gauche down the broad staircase and down to the floor of the grand front-hall, she was again reminded of the mansion's size. This seemed to be a place more suitable to housing small giants rather than ordinary people. Or maybe, her sense of scale was probably off because of her child-sized stature. It was also an effort to follow the woman down these stairs. If she could not affect Miss Gauche directly, perhaps she could have affected her skirt just as she continued her walk down this oh-so-long staircase? The fall would be wonderful. She imagined Miss Gauche's arms flailing and long black dress flapping as she went _thump-thump-thumpity-thump-thump…_a-a-all the way down the grand staircase…

No, that would not work. Miss Gauche was too thoroughly protected…as Selena had found out again and again. As it was, she was even feeling the edges of a headache from even being so close to the woman down these stairs. A grand staircase, this seemed more like an indoor mountain! How could Miss Gauche live within the luxuries of this place: this house of grandiose wealth and prosperity: and _still_ remain pious to the religion? Was it not noted in the sacred texts that riches were but numbers in a book? It was perhaps this reason that golden jewelry or even silver repelled sacred things: even Selena's influences.

At some point, they _finally _made it down these stairs: standing on the wide tiled floor. Miss Gauche then led the way to a side-room to the right of the staircase and held open the door. "Forever dawdling! Is that what you wish to be known upon the Day of the Holy Descent? The Princess Dawdler? Or perhaps more _discipline _is in order, hmm?" Selena quickly complied, bowing her head and quickly passing through the side-door.

In here was a surprisingly bare and austere room. There was no carpeting on the floor, which was smooth and of black-and-white tiles. Though scrubbed, the white tiling looked pitted with age. And the four walls were made of bare brick, against which was one small book-shelf: and a square frame in which hung a selection of gold and platinum-red chains of varying sizes. Next to it was a chalk-board. The ceiling here was made of red-colored perforated tiles, a single florescent light-fixture shining down on this hard, cold place. Why, it resembled a small classroom: right here in the mansion. Was it not for the display of various chains against one of the walls, it would have likely been part of any institution of higher learning. The chains… She could only imagine what those were for: her eyes focused on them.

"Be seated," said Miss Gauche crisply. She closed the door and turned to see the child primly seated at the desk. "As mature as you believe yourself to be, having matured as a woman in your past life, such must now be forgotten," she said as she walked over to the chalkboard, jewelry clinking beneath her long black dress. "Forget your previous self. Forget your previous body! You surrendered yourself when you partook in a voluntary transition." Selena's lips parted and eyes widened. "Ah! How did I come to know of this, you wish to ask? _They _told it to me. After all, _they _are fully aware of any and all transitions: major uses of God's power. Therefore, when you utilized God's power in order to leave your world, _they _were well aware of what you wanted to do: and what you could do."

_They let me escape,_ thought Selena, her eyes slowly going away from Miss Gauche. She looked down at the desk as a feeling of cold bitterness and betrayal filled her. They _allowed_ her to use a furnace to "escape" Silent Hill. She believed that what she had done was an act of rebellion. Except it was not. All of this time, it was all in step with what _wanted._.

"Long ago, after the beginning, God descended for a time and was able to bring about wonderful things for the people," said Miss Gauche, as if Selena had never heard any of it before. "Before God came, the people lived in languor and suffering. There was a great deal of nothing but existence: bare and aching existence. God came and brought about so much for us! God divided night and day, brought about rules and order. Existence became _ordered_ and _proper. _The people were being prepared for paradise when God…became exhausted before She could create Paradise.

"Yet where did the energy of God go? Did it merely disappear? When God's incarnation crumbled to dust from exhaustion, where did Her energy ultimately go? Scientists know that energy does not merely disappear in this world. It merely dissipates. And who is to say that a disproportionately large concentration of that energy was not dissipated to some of the people, a chosen group? I refer to such as _your _people: _blessed _by God and still retaining of power!"

"My people have our own power! God be damned!" shouted Selena before she realized it. It was it was not just herself speaking. "We have our own abilities. We did not _need _God to grant it. And it was God that utilized _our _power to do what She chose to do. Oh, but then what you call 'God' did not have the power we have. Perhaps _that _was what destroyed God."

"_You blasphemous, wayward child!_" shrieked Miss Gauche, her face becoming as red as her hair. _Slap! _Selena's head was rocked to the side, but she did not fall away from the desk. Miss Gauche then angrily strode over to that selection of chains as Selena: head still ringing from the pain of the blow: made one of the books on the bookshelf float over to where she sat. She then opened the religious text open to somewhere in the middle, where God's exhaustion was described.

When her eyesight cleared, she was able to read the text. Indeed, her interpretation of the text did not seem too far of a larger truth behind the basic "truth." God descended from the heavens. Then God was able to bring about the _blessings _described by Miss Gauche. Night and day were soon divided. The people were living in the bliss and wonder of a presence that brought about such wondrous changes to their lives. This text in fact referred to the acts of God as "blessings." But this text said nothing of where God drew power to perform these acts. Yet there was more to "God" than what was blindly followed by the likes of Miss Gauche. Selena followed her religion, but she was not so foolish as to literally believe all the texts at face value.

"What are you doing now?" yelled Miss Gauche. "No matter, you must be _disciplined _against partaking in blasphemy." She took hold of one of Selena's hands and roughly looped a gold chain…_around the wrist… It was pain! Selena felt that now too-familiar kind of pain again: the pain of exposure to gold: as it traveled up her wrist. The pain spread throughout her body and went to her head. It was so much suffering that she felt as if her nose and ears would ooze blood. She was vaguely aware of feeling her own body tremble and weaken…_

The chain…was taken off. Selena sucked in a breath and pulled her pained wrist close to her abdomen. Something dribbled from her eyes, nose and ears. She used her uninjured wrist to dab at her nose. It was not something so disgusting as mucous that came out. No, it was blood: _her _blood. Except… She saw that her blood was not red. It was a substance of another color… Of course not. She only _looked _human. Inside, she was…something else: something _blessed._

__

Miss Gauche still held the gold chain she had used on one of Selena's wrists. "In addition to being a dawdler, you seek to be a blasphemer as well. We shall continue our lessons. And this time, perhaps this time there will be no need for further _discipline_. After all, your people may have been favored by God's presence. Yet God saw fit to have a means of controlling your kind as necessary, just as she _disciplined _your kin into serving the greater good of this world: the most important world of all."

…

4.

…

Darkness all around, this factory in the downtown area was obscured with strong fog: the kind of fog with streaks of brown floating within it. Globes of light interrupted the fog, illuminating parts of the tall gritty structure. Six massive smokestacks on top crowned the building, sending up reddish smoke to the darkness above. The globes of light themselves came from man-sized dirty light-fixtures that had been strung along the third floor of this building. They, the lights, were suspended from the lattice-work of rusty barbed wiring around the building, their electrical cables intertwined with the barbed wire and insulated with wrapped strips of dried skin. Darkened windows farther down were either blacked out or were so thick with a crusty and hardened layer of dried grease. Lower still, here on ground level, there were great big holes knocked through the walls: through which there were wide rusty pipes and electrical cables put through and connecting the building to the ground. These pipes going into the ground were as wide and round as very fat men, as if corpses lubricated with blood and grease could be pumped through. And given the heavy, powerful sounds of the engines within the building, that possibility didn't seem too damned unlikely.

This was not originally a factory: was actually a clothing and wholesale goods warehouse. But the _animals _had changed that. Now it really _was _a factory again, a factory dominated by things the architects would not have expected: not in a million years. And since all the other engines in town were wrecked, this facility had to work double-time to make up for the loss in production: the engines inside churning and thrumming, pipes that were gush-pumping stuff into the ground while those six smokestacks way up there steadily billowing fluffs of reddish smoke.

_R-r-r-rumble... _That was not the sound of the engines within the factory. That sound was actually from elsewhere: the sound of an earthquake in the air. It was making for a heavy bass-tone shaking that vibrated everything. The wide round metal pipes in the ground began shaking in sympathetic vibration. Those grimed-over windows did the same. And the noise was getting louder, coming closer…

__

The front entrance to the huge building parted. With the doors opened, all kinds of heavy engine and motor sounds came from in there, thrumming sounds interspaced with an occasional _buzz _of intense voltage or the _clank _of something else. These were sounds from the darkness: the rhythmic churning sounds and steady sounds of production. Except, sounds were not the only thing to come out of the entrance.

Blood workers came waddling on out: a haphazard group of squat, muscular creature-men in coveralls: their heads covered with grimy sack-cloth and tied with strips of dried flesh. They were hobbling more so than usual because of what they were carrying: weapons. These weapons resembled sections of polished pipe with odd lumps in the metal. Clearly, the blood workers were going to do something more than work in the altered factory.

As Deniers hung out of open windows and crawled along the walls of the building, the blood workers were getting ready to do battle: getting behind chunks of junk and mounds of dirt that oozed something dark and oily. Three of the Deniers crawled along the building's outside, getting over to one of the light fixtures, then adjusted some of the man-sized light fixtures to shine light down on the front-area: making for a sort of spotlight on the ground at the front entrance.

The spotlighting effect made for a view of the four big figures. They were now striding towards the front entrance. Walking shoulder-to-shoulder, all of them were huge and strong, looking eight feet tall and probably just as wide: still dressed in their outfit of dark leather jackets and jeans to fit their mighty bodies, gigantic boots on their massive feet. All of them had their appropriate weapons clutched in their huge hands: the odd rifle, the great knife, the nunchaku, and the scythe. They were obviously here for three reasons: crush, kill, and _destroy_.

Well, the blood workers weren't going to have any of that! "_Erg-ach!_" grunted one of them, standing up on a grimy mound of oily dirt and aiming his lumpy pipe-weapon thing. There was a burst of blue light from the front end of the pipe, and then the four bikers were engulfed in a glowing red haze: a sort of fire. Except, the fire stayed put. And the dark bikers continued to walk on. The attack did not even seem to break their stride.

"_Saty-a-a-agraha-a-a!_" squealed another one of the muscular midgets with sack-cloth over his head. This one stood up and took aim with its lumpy pipe-weapon: firing just as his distorted comrade had done. And yet again, the dark bikers were engulfed in that glowing red haze. "_Woodle-e-e-e doo! Oblamah, elkric!_" That had to do _something!_

No, it did not. Not even multiple attacks from their weapons could stop the dark bikers. Those four just moved on, kept walking. The dark biker of the great knife shrugged and readjusted his hold on the broad bladed weapon. But that was the extent of the trouble it caused them, not even irritation. "_Migosh_," growled the blood worker. It then growled again, repeating the sentiment. "_Mi-gosh… Mi-gosh… Mi-gosh…_"

__

"_Mi-gosh! Mi-gosh! Mi-gosh! Mi-gosh…!_" chanted another few of the short muscular men-creatures. They raised their black-polished pipe-weapons to the darkness above: also raising their voices. _Mi-gosh, mi-gosh, mi-gosh, mi-gosh…! _At this point, the dark bikers stopped their stride and stood with feet apart, a dark look in their eyes as the spotlights from the building shone down on them. _Mi-gosh, mi-gosh, mi-gosh, _continued the chant from the blood workers. One of them became a bit too enthusiastic and stood on top of his greasy mound of sheltering dirt, waving gigantic muscular arms in the air to the beat of the chant. "_Mi-gosh, mi-gosh, mi-i-i-i-gosh…_"

There was a beat of silence. "_Mi-i-i-i-gosh!" _squealed the blood worker now standing atop one of the greasy mounds of factory dirt. In the silence following the chanting, he turned his pipe-weapon around to face his own chest. He pressed the trigger. There was a blue burst from the business end of the pipe-weapon, the glowing red haze covered him… And then he dissolved into a reddish mist. The weapon clattered to the mound, tumbling down the mound, before tumbling to the ground. This reddish haze began to drift back towards the factory: being sucked in.

Something happened when the reddish haze was swallowed by the darkness of the factory. High above, one of the smokestacks gushed a burst of red flame. There were then some extra sounds coming out of the darkened factory entranceway: noises that were louder than those of the engines in there. These were rackety clanking sounds mixed with grunting and squealing. The rackety clanking sounds became rhythmic and louder. It was the sound of something approaching: something huge and mechanical.

Something huge began to stagger-walk out of the factory on all six of its stilt-like rusty pole-legs: fully unfolding them when it was outside. Now it was at least eighteen feet tall, a grotesque and distorted beast of meat and metal: a bastard conglomeration of rusty metal framework and exposed muscle tissue. All six legs were attached to a central circular body of red rusty metal illuminated by the light fixtures of the factory. Riding on the thing's back was one of those purple-furred ape things, except its head was covered with a dirty sack smeared with fresh red blood and streaks of motor oil. Its lower body was waist-deep in the meat of the beast-machine's back, and its paw-hands were on the square rusty metal box: controlling the thing. A twitch of the controls, and a dozen black tentacles burst out from the beast-machine's underbelly.

These things wriggled about and seemed to have minds of their own, dripping drops of liquid that made spattering _hiss _sounds wherever they touched the ground. There were some rackety-clanking sounds, and the ape-thing was walking over to where the four bikers stood together. The gigantic beast-machine was fully intent on doing something dark and terrible to these blasphemers who dared interfere with the great works!

__

The biker of the great knife strode forward and raised the gigantic blade up behind his back. A heavy _whoosh _sounded out as the gigantic blade _tore _through the air: ravaging the air itself as it cut. And when the gigantic blade completed its arc, three of the beast-machine's rusty pole-legs were snapped clean in half. There was a disappointed and angry _growling _sound from the ape-thing piloting the beast-machine as the grotesque vehicle _slammed _onto its left side: sending up a plume of dirt lit by the spotlights.

__

Click! Click-click! "_Roogh!_" The ape-thing struggled with the controls, trying to make _something _happen. As it continued to do so, the dark biker of the odd rifle took aim with his trademark weapon. There was a flash of intensely bright light. This was followed by a thunderous _boom _of sound: a thunderclap. It seemed like a sound from an orifice of Hell itself.

And when the smoke cleared, the core-body of the beast-machine was…gone. Along with it, the ape-thing had also been obliterated. The remaining stilt-legs collapsed and clattered to the ground. It may as well not have been complete at all.

There would be no more fighting from that thing, not any damned more! "_Elkric, oblamah!_" squealed one of the blood workers. Then all of the blood workers dropped their pipe-weapons and made a run for the factory entrance. Some of them began to make grunting and squealing noises when they made it in as they tried to _clo-o-ose _the huge factory doors. The four bikers were coming. They were hoping to keep them from coming in.

Nothing would stop the four dark bikers, however. Nothing in the world could do so. The doors were not even half-closed when the dark bikers walked into there: going into the darkness. There were then sounds of obliteration and wreckage as they went to work. Engines were wrecked. Support structures were smashed and split. The odd rifle boomed out, making for more sounds of thunder and flashes of light.

The damage was soon becoming apparent. Those steady thrumming sounds of the motors and engines within the factory became erratic. And the smokestacks above began to sputter, vomiting gouts of flame instead of steady reddish smoke. The pipes that steadily gush-pumped stuff into the ground gurgled as the flow was interrupted. _Bzzt, flick-flicker… _That was the sound of the light fixtures suspended on the outside of this building: the fixtures on the lattice-work of rusty barbed wire. The six-armed Deniers up there tried doing things to the light fixtures while others tried scrambling up to the roof of this factory-building.

__

There was a flash of light in there, followed by a _booming _burst. All the dark windows on all three floors exploded outward with spraying glass and pieces of machinery. Whole chunks of concrete flew outward as well, making some of the Deniers fall off of the building and to the ground: wriggling with broken limbs and backs. The structure itself began to glow red at first, becoming yellow, heating up…

Then it was gone. The whole building had been destroyed. The smokestacks, the pipes, all of the light fixtures, all of it was no longer there any more. A few Deniers were using all six of their arms to scramble away from where the building once stood, their bodies streaked with dark oily fluid from flying shrapnel wounds. These things were getting the Hell _away _from here. They had no particular desire to face the dark bikers: _especially _since there were no more engines here for the deniers to operate anymore.

When the Deniers were far away enough, some of them began to vomit, making for oily puddles in the ground. The puddles were so dark, so deep, that they almost seemed like…holes… The aspect of the puddles being holes was reaffirmed when the Deniers used their six arms to pull themselves down into them, squishing their way through mush, going…_beyond and into the oily darkness…_

…

_In the Other world, one of the rust-metal hallways became full of sound: a siren wailing throughout and sounding out its warning. This siren was loud enough to shake the rusted grating that formed the ceiling, also quaking the metal doors set in the walls: walls made of metal plates. One of the doors shook more than the others before it sque-e-ealed open on its tortured hinges. Out came the Deniers, scrambling along the floors and ceiling as they got away from the door. The door then slammed shut, and a seal of rust formed over the doorknob._

The siren continued its blaring, wailing sound. Beyond the plate-metal walls and beneath the gritty floors, the Machinery rattled and shook in agitation. The Machinery had felt the destruction of so many engines, felt the pain…. The pa-a-a-i-i-n! And it was none too pleased with the Deniers that came scrambling back. The Deniers would have to be punished.

Clank-k-k! A gigantic steel wall slammed down on one end of the hall: crushing one of the last Deniers in. Clank-k-k! Another metal wall came down on the other end of this hall. Click! Click-click! There were multiple clicking sounds as all the other doors locked by themselves. There would be no escaping here.

The Deniers were smart creatures. They knew what was going to happen to them. But it didn't mean that they couldn't try to escape. As they scrambled madly about, their heads vibrating and arms moving, the hall began to heat up with a flood of intense radiation. It was radiation so intense that even the stale, dead air began to waver. Light flickered. The skin of the Deniers first begin to bubble: before becoming charred. They burst into flames and their flesh began to peel off of their bones: heads madly vibrating as they began to burn.

It was over quickly. When it was, the Deniers resembled big blackened sausages with arm-stumps. Their arms had been burnt away. Clank! _Clank! The entrapping walls came up, sliding back into the ceiling. Then one of the side-doors opened. Not that the Deniers were in any shape to take advantage of the fact, but the doors, the ends of the hall, every which way was open again._

They would not be going anywhere, though! Out of the opened door stomped a shub-gubbler: its gigantic metal head atop a human-shaped body. Its body was dressed in a greasy doctor's labcoat and pants, both of which must have been clean-white at least a few hundred years ago. The metal head squeaked open, drooling something smelly and oily.

Cl-clomp! "Rwoogh agog!"exclaimed the shub-gubbler, doing a slight hop of glee upon seeing the corpses. Then it enthusiastically staggered along this hallway. It bent over and used its hands to bodily pick up one of the blackened, roasted corpses of a Denier. The entire body of the Denier was able to fit in the gigantic metal mouth of the shub-gubbler, and then it was chewed. When that Denier was swallowed, this shub-gubbler happily staggered over to another one of the Deniers on the gritty floor. It repeated the process, putting the roasted Denier in its huge maw, chewing and swallowing the creature. One of the Deniers was still bleeding dark fluids, somehow alive enough to try and crawl away on its charred arm-stumps. It seemed alive though, then again, nothing in this place was really dead _here_, _either. Because death was a lie._

Death may have been a lie, but there were things worse than just having one's body die! It was trying to get away, its head wriggling like mad as the shub-gubbler reached down with big lumpy hands to scoop up the radiation-fried creature. The shub-gubbler then opened its gigantic metal maw, put the Denier inside, then bit down. It ate that Denier; it ate them a-a-all.

The meal done, the being's great big belly bulged at the buttons of the lab-coat as it staggered away. Bu-u-urp! Oh yes, it was quite a meal. And Deniers had the tastiest bodies of all. It was not often that a shub-gibbler had the opportunity to eat them. Happy it was, and happy it always would be in performing its job. It was now walking towards the stairwell to take it down at least six floors to where it would excrete the remains of the Deniers into an open port of the Machinery.


	10. CHAPTER Ten

__

Silent Hill: The Dream Machine

…

Chapter 10

by Elliot Bowers

"She Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (_Por Vida_ remix)

original music by Alejandro Escovedo

remixed lyrics and music by John Cale

…

There were all kinds of creatures ambling and waddling around here, stalking and moving along the grounds of the Longhorn Estate as the piercing golden rays of morning illuminated streaks of brownish mist. Just as carnivorous beasts leave behind the bones of slaughtered prey, the light left behind the streaks of mists after burning away most of the fog. And that was all there was of what once obscured the air and covered over the distorted beasts that roamed the land of this estate: beasts that found no other refuge as the engines throughout town were annihilated, obliterated, _gone_.

Now the creatures were no longer so bold and aggressive. The headless deer-things with six legs, their necks of bristling horns, they stayed close to the forest that bordered this back field. Those dog-like things without any legs at all, they slid along the ground in the tall grass, keeping their furry heads low. Some of the leathery skinned bird-creatures that only appeared the night before, they stayed out of sight, away from the field and in the trees: some of the trees bleeding red blood from cracks in their trunks. The purple-furred apelike creatures, the ones with electromechanical gas-masks bolted to their faces, they were a bit more bold as they strutted around with rusty metal pipes in their paw-hands.

Allof the _animals_ became all the more timid and reclusive as the morning light burned brighter, searing more of the fog away. The _animals_ clung closer to the ground, staying in the low-lying gray mists, and some of them stayed closer to the surrounding forest. "_Erg-ach!_" squealed a dog-thing at one point, hit with a few rays. There was simply not enough fog to keep some of these creatures comfortable. Worse yet was how the nightly fogs were simply weaker with every passing hour these past few days. This world was becoming less habitable instead of more habitable.

There was less fog in the air now. And the sun was far too bright. Where were the engines now? What of the Deniers? Things were going to become a great deal worse. A mile away from the rear grounds, far over on the other side of the estate, the front gates stood tall and dark: made of what seemed to be wrought-iron metal: blackened metal, now with a slick coating of slime and patches of red moss. The slick fungal coating on the metal was now drying out as sunlight shone on it: drying it out. Then it began to vibrate as a _r-r-r-rumbling _sound approached…. The dark bikers were coming _here._

…

Elsewhere in Pleasant River, in the downtown area, the inside of the sealed café also began to lighten and brighten: the floor now clean and newer in appearance. There were now plenty of mannequins seated at the tables and in dining booths by the windows, every seat in the place was occupied by some carved figure in clothes. And the grime that coated the outside surface of the windows was lessening and letting in more light. Even the rotating stools in front of the counter were occupied by mannequins that seemed carefully poised and balanced. _Bzzt! _The florescent light fixtures flicked on and made the inside even brighter. Then the television over the quick-order dining counter came on. _Bzzt! _One of the florescent light-fixtures flickered again, and one of the mannequins tumbled to the floor, yet vanished before it actually struck the hard surface…

_Bzzt! _The lights flickered yet again. Shapes began to whirl around the room as the…_air became different. It was such that the shapes and light here became blurred and different. It was the sound of something…coming this way. These lights alternated to the point that there seemed to be just as much darkness as there was light. The florescent light-tubes stopped flickering…_

And…that was when this place seemed to come alive. The lights came on, and this place was all full of sound and talking. Maire stepped out from behind the curtain of the small stage at one side of the café. She was dressed much like before: green jeans-shorts, a green tee-shirt with open black leather jacket thrown over for comfort, and almost-clunky calf-length boots for footwear. When she looked around now, she saw that the café was full of all kinds of people: all of them sitting at tables and such, chatting and smiling. Even the man in the swarthy man in the white business suit and the people in the silvery suits seemed to be happy, though their reflective helmets effectively hid their heads from view.

The tall waitress approached the small stage: dressed in the outfit of long black skirt and white blouse. "Welcome again and _again_, Maire," she said. "You've come back to the back, again and again," she said. "The oatmeal will lose _our _flavor next. We know that we will have to worry." The waitress smiled and pointed to the television over the counter. "Have you _seen_ what is on television?"

Though the tall waitress smiled, Maire did not when she looked in the direction indicated by the pointing hand. Looking away from the waitress, the girl turned her green-eyed gaze to the television suspended over the counter. The television now looked bigger and more square in design and flatter: a "flat screen" television that had a great deal less machinery in the back: a different kind of appliance than the kind she had seen in this café before. And even from over here, Maire could see that the device's picture quality was unbelievably realistic: more as if a person was looking through a window that could see into another place, a _real _image.

The head waiter behind the counter noticed that Maire was looking. Perhaps she would like to see something more…_revealing?_ This in mind, hee glanced up at the television. The channel changed, and he resumed his work.

Now it showed another show: if one could call it a show. The picture was that of four muscular men sitting at a table at this café. At the center of the table was a champion-sized gigantic bowl of what looked like flavored oatmeal: perhaps six gallons of the stuff thoroughly sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. They were drooling, eyes wide open and wanting to devour it.

All four of them were dressed differently for their dining occasion. One figures was dressed in a white cloak that covered his shoulders, his eyes looking at the huge bowl of oatmeal. Another figure was muscularly bare-chested: his chest-hair a deeper shade of red than the hair atop his head. He too was also looking at his meal-to-be. The third figure, in contrast, looked weak and thin, his skin as sickly and haggard-looking as the black shroud draped over his thin shoulders. And somehow, the fourth one at the table looked worse than the one in the black shawl: this fourth figure looked almost skeletal, a very bony sort of face: though the shroud he had over his shoulders was of a bleached-white. The grin on his face seemed stuck on: almost a rictus. And then…

__

There was the…_blasting sound of an air siren the kind of loud machine that blasted warning sounds to entire cities when things happened. The noise was…too damned loud! Maire clamped her hands over her slightly pointed ears as the sound of the wailing siren blasted out of the television's sound-system. She had small, slender hands: proportionate to the rest of her: and they were not able to block out much of the sound. Or rather, it seemed as if the siren was a wailing siren right here in the café. Even with her hands over her ears, the noise was just so cursably, painfully powerful!_

No one else in the café seemed to mind. In fact, to their ears, it seemed like…music. This seemed so as people at the tables beginning to cheer and clap, some of them wriggling and swinging their elbows and clicking their fingers. It looked as if they were dancing in their seats. Noise? What noise? Hell, girlie, this ain't noise! Get those pointy ears of yours fixed! Why don't you try listenin', huh? This stuff sounds goo-o-od…!

_It was…too_…_loud! Maire sank to her knees and hunched herself as if to keep out the sound. It did not, the sound actually becoming slightly louder as her bare knees were in contact with the top of the little stage: sending the vibrations up through the stage and through her skin, vibrating her bones and sending the sound to her head. Despite the sudden pandemonium, she knew that she had to look up at that television over there._

They were having a good time, too. The figures on the television were having themselves a Hell of a time too, eating ouf of that gigantic, massive bowl of cinnamon-flavored oatmeal. Gobbling and chomping, they were using gigantic spoons to scoop up the stuff and gobble it down. One of them was even using a combination of big spoon and fingers and wholly swallowing without even bothering to chew. Except now, it was beginning to look less like oatmeal and more like ground brains… The bowl had changed to resemble the upper portion of a sawed-off skull.

Please no, she thought as she saw what was playing out on the television. Except that was no mere television show. Please, let it not be! Hands still clamped over those ears of hers, she stood up from where she was hunched on the stage. Then she made a run for the café door. The "show" on the television actually showed something that was happening! She hoped she could find her Sister before it was too late.

…

_Kablam-m-m! _The gritty metal front gates of the Longhorn Estate _exploded, _and the four dark bikers came _r-r-r-r-oar-r-ring _in on their gigantic motorcycles. They all had huge moon-like smiles on their faces as they rode right on into here, their weapons were now thoroughly greased with the dark oily fluids that passed for _animal _blood. The dark biker of the odd rifle took both hands off his motorcycle's handlebars and took aim with his signature weapon. He fired, and six _animals _were suddenly burnt to ash: blown away by the wind. Next the dark biker of the great knife swung his weapon as well: neatly splitting four other _animals _bodily in half. _Wham! _The dark biker of the nunchaku raised his weapon one-handedly and swung it down , and five _animals _were suddenly squashed flat, as if by the gigantic poke of a deific finger.

And now, the road at the front of the estate was becoming full of _animals. _Various kinds of things crawled, staggered and what-not in getting over to this winding road. Some of them laid themselves flat against the paved surface. The ones with limbs to stand on stood up relatively straight and in defiance. Those creatures that had faces now put on looks of grinning delight. Then they all started making noises, a collective racket with whatever they had for orifices. There was squealing and grunting, whining and even some chirping. The purple-furred ape-things beat their rusty metal pipe-weapons against the ground and slapped their electromechanical gas-masks to add to the pandemonium. This was _their _territory!

But not for long. That was because the dark bikers were continuing their mad and wrathful path of destruction as they continued their way to the mansion. The dark biker of the great knife swung his weapon to and fro one handedly as he rode, while the dark biker of the nunchaku made whirling blows from his side. As for the biker of the odd rifle, he had his weapon aimed forward with one hand and was leisurely shooting: blasting dozens of luckless creatures into blackened ash-statues with every squeeze of the trigger. The dark biker of the scythe was pleased. And so they rode, wrecking and obliterating, decimating the masses of _animals _as they continued. The dark bikers were also aware of what was overhead. Yet the dark bikers did not care: They had the confidence of invincibility.

Overhead were creatures that resembled leathery balloons with lumpy bottoms: allowing them to float up on high. Their lower bodies consisted of crusty half-shells with large eyeballs, looking around and below. Below the eyeballs were hair-thin tentacles that waved through the air to assist in changing direction. Floating right along with them was a dead man in hunting clothes, arms waving and legs dangling.

It was a phantom, someone long dead and made a victim of the contamination. Even in death, the contamination is able to use people. Of course, dead people were not supposed to be up in thhe air like that! Then again, those gaseous-bodied balloon animals were not supposed to exist, either. The floating phantasm soon did a flopping turn in the air to turn and look at the bikers as they continued along.

…

2.

…

This leisurely side-room in this mansion: on the first floor: was again the place Miss Gauche used for business. The business was already done, and things were certainly a great deal worse than she hoped. Now she was again placing protective jewelry on her body as the last of the Deniers crawled out of here through slime-lined holes in the left wall. The last of the six-armed beings was leaving now. When its rearmost set of arms vanished into the hole, the opening closed itself up and became a large patch of oily black. By the time Miss Gauche was pulling on her long black dress, fastening the buttons, even that gray stain was fading.

_There is hope yet,_ she thought to herself as she fastened the last of the buttons up to her neck. _No number of blasphemers can halt the mighty hand of God! _She thought of the pale-haired child who was still imprisoned upstairs. _We yet have the catalyst, _thought the tall womanShe reached to the nape of her neck to fluff out lengths of her red hair: shook her head and stroked it in place as so it cascaded straight down her back. _The catalyst has power. _She smiled. _And there is one engine that has not been destroyed by the blasphemers. _Even though she knew that the dark bikers were en route to this place, though she knew that they were slaughtering waves upon waves of the blessed right this moment, she still had _faith._

She especially had faith in the power of the catalyst. The catalyst… Yes, the power of the catalyst would bring about the end of the threat. Or it would be the end of this town's existence before it was fully blessed by the angels who so generously bestowed the engines to Samuel Longhorn. Her bare feet and ankles brushing the hem of her long dress, she strode towards the desk. In a drawer of the desk was a rusty red-metal box with something in it.

…

Here in the bedroom, Selena was bundled and swathed in the large quilted blanket she had taken from the bed. The bed itself was generously large and would have been comfortable: save the fact that it still had those gold-alloy restraints. Even going close to the bed still gave her terrible hot headaches. But now that she had taken the blankets from the bed, the carpeted floor had been as good a place as any to lie down and sleep for the night. Even as the morning rays of dawn shone through the window and her eyes opened, she still lie there, thinking. She _should _be happy soon, considering what she had seen while asleep: in touch with the minds of the _animals _that floated outside. And yet, she also felt extremely worried. The bikers were destroying everyone and everything that kept her trapped in this place. Would they destroy her as well?

_Click-click! _The door opened, and in strode Miss Gauche: along with a doctor-thing. This doctor-thing was dressed much like other doctor-things: a black-smeared lab-coat for a top, with black-and-gray striped pants with thick-shod feet. Except this doctor-thing was wearing a sort of cylindrical helmet over its head. Or was it really a helmet? Selena had the idea that the "helmet" was actually part of the doctor-thing's body by now, and to try tearing off the helmet would probably result in a tearing of the being's flesh. With its helmet-head stiffly atop its body, its thick shoes made slight clomping sounds as it followed Miss Gauche.

And Miss Gauche was walking over to where Selena lie. Selena quickly threw off the blankets, clad only in a simple nightgown, and tried to quickly crawl away…only to collapse when Miss Gauche came too near. It was that jewelry, the accursed gold jewelry! Had the damned _witch _not been wearing it, Selena would certainly have made her dead with a thought.

Except Miss Gauche _was _wearing the jewelry. And she was therefore in charge of this situation. Selena could only flop to her back and weakly writhe on the floor, her breathing becoming weak and shallow as the proximity of Miss Gauche drained her strength.

"Child, your power is needed," said the tall red-haired woman. Selena managed a scowl with what little strength she had now, her large green eyes angry. The girl did not even feel strong enough to voice an insult. She was, however, able to transmit an especially nasty and obscene to Miss Gauche's mind. "Oh-ho! Is that so? Quite a bit of colorful imagery for such a young lady! Well, never mind your lack of discipline. Some of your power will be used…with or without your consent."

The tall woman took a step back, and the doctor-thing stepped forward. The being reached into its grimy labcoat pockets to take out something long and dangerous-looking. It was an especially large syringe: the sharp long point at least five inches long. The cylindrical shaft at the base of the needle was crusted with rust and grime. Even touching the thing, let alone having it penetrate the flesh, looked to be something to bring about disease.

_Please no,_ thought Selena, staring at the obscenely huge syringe. But there was no escaping, not with Miss Gauche's gold jewelry making her feel even too weak to stand. The pale-haired little girl could only mewl in fright as the doctor-thing reached down. His thick arm worked fast, the three-fingered hand grabbing her.

He had her by the neck: lifting her up off the floor as so her bare feet dangled beneath the hem of her nightgown. As the doctor-thing's cancerous hand gripped her neck, she could feel the gritty nodules and griminess of the doctor-thing's thick thumb as it pressed her throat closed. He was squeezing too hard, squeezing and…_hurting!_ _She began to see_…_darkness closing in around her vision. Yet the worse was not yet._

_The worse was actually when the doctor-thing_ plunged_ the needle into her chest, penetrating her sternum and going somewhere deep inside. Her body spasmed once, her cry of pain choked off; the doctor-thing was still squeezing her neck with one hand while using the needle with the other. The doctor-thing flipped his thumb beneath the plunger of the syringe as so his thumb could pull it back. This made for the syringe sucking something from deep within Selena's body. There, it seemed to stay for too long._

After what must have been a very long time, feeling herself fading, she saw the doctor-thing painfully pu-u-lling back, the grotesque needle in his hands. Wide-eyed, her eyes looked at the thing once in her chest, her blood lubricating the long point of the needle. Except her own blood was actually a dark carbon color, the color of oil. Then her eyes rolled up in her head and she fainted. The last thing she heard was Miss Gauche saying, "I do hope that is enough…for the sake of both _of us. Now we…"_

…

Some time later, Miss Gauche was on the first floor: passing through the Western corridor of this mansion. It was a corridor as grand as the rest of this grand house, tall and spacious enough to house giants, with wood paneling along the walls and a red-carpeted floor. The red-haired woman's still-bare feet made no sounds as she walked along, the only sounds coming from her being the slight clinking of jewelry and the whisper of her long black skirt along the carpet. She was aware of these things, so many things now. It was odd how one notices minor details on the way to one's own death.

No, she would not believe that. This was not her end, as death is a lie. As she neared her destination, she more tightly gripped the six inch-long cylindrical object in her left hand. It was the metal hypodermic syringe full of the catalyst's blood: fresh blood, still warm. And since it was the catalyst's blood, it was more warm than it should have been. She could nearly feel it burning her hand: more so as she neared the workshop. The burning sensation soon intensified to the point that she had to pocket the thing, feeling it burning through cloth.

The workshop door was just ahead, to the left. _Argh-wragh!_ She pressed her lips together and tensed her shoulders as she kept going along, hearing the growling of the unseen presence. _Rr-rgh… _"You cannot do anything to me," she said aloud. "Before long, even _you _will be less rebellious and more inclined to follow! "Snarl and growl as you please, we will not be stopped." Finally at the doorway, she opened the door and went in.

_Flick-flicker… _Inside, the square workshop-room was a wonderful mess. It would have been grotesque to anyone else's eyes, the eyes of those who did not understand. _Flicker… _The hard floor was now interspaced with thick metal plates, greaed with blood. What were once hard walls were now crumbling in places. This exposed piping and wiring behind there, some of the wiring torn. That could be one of the reasons why the florescent lights along the ceiling blinked: _flick-flick_ every so often. The flickering of the lights could also be caused by another reason: a more important one.

__

Flicker! Flick-flicker… She stood in the middle of the floor, hands at her sides. It was now or never, really. For once she would have to strip herself of the protections that had kept her separated from the _blessing_. Now was the time to show her faith. It would not do for her to approach the engine with things that would interfere with its operation. What did she have to fear but bliss?

So her hands went to the first buttons of her black dress near her collar. She undid the first few buttons, exposing her neck and bosom.. Moving faster, she undid the rest of the buttons and slid the black dress off of her shoulders: exposing the rest of her body. The jewelry had to go as well: especially the jewelry. So she pulled it all off: the anklets, the thin gold chains that draped her slim waist just above the hips, the gold wrist-cuffs, everything. Taking off her clothing was one thing. But to take this off made her feel the most vulnerable.

Or it made her more open to receive the blessing. Now completely without clothing or protective jewelry, her body naked and unprotected, she approached the thick, heavy lead-metal door at the far end of the workshop: the metal syringe burningly hot in her left hand. _Squee-squee-squee-squee… _There was a wheel-lock mechanism on the thick lead-metal door, a wheel lock that was spinning itself open…. _Sque-e-e…_ The door itself opened.

_They summon me_, she thought to herself. _They _were here already, in the sealed room that contained the engine. _They _must have sensed that she had the blood of the catalyst. And _they _were waiting. This opened…_the way_…_to chaos._

The sound of the engine was loud and aggressive, filling the darkened space with noise. The lights were flickering with such rapidity that it was more dark than it was light, and the air was swirling about. This was the small, radiation-sealed inner-room held the engines and other relics that Samuel Longhorn had obtained from the forest. Now the lights were flickering like mad to add to the noise, adding to the swirling indoor wind-storm stirred up by the noisy activity of the engine on the floor: the wind sweeping across her bare skin and whipping her long red hair. Deniers crept and groped along the ceiling, their heads vibrating like mad as they approached the tall, slender naked woman with the catalyst.

"_Blessed be…! Oh, blessed be!_" _she shouted, the indoor wind and noise snatching away her shout. Yes, the angels were coming to personally bestow their blessing! This was truly what a life of virtue brought her, a deliverance of blessing from God._

Suddenly, she realized that her left hand was numb and would not work. The hypodermic dropped to the floor and rolled on its side. Why? It was because the palm of her left hand was burned to the bone. Looking away from her quick-roasted hand, she saw that the metal hypodermic was now glowing red-hot. No wonder why the syringe was made of metal instead of plastic: to better withstand the potentially high temperatures of the liquid within. The hypodermic had been so hot that it burned skin, muscle, and nerves almost instantly. Now her left hand was useless. She tried to take a step towards the hypodermic amidst all this noise and frenzy. She never made it. Something grabbed her and snatched her into the engine.

She was gone. As the room continued to shake and quake with noise and activity, wind and chaos, the hypodermic needle rolled to a stop against the far-end wall. A Denier scrambled down from the ceiling and along the wall: its head vibrating and making for a greasy gray splotch in the wall. Out of this gray splotch crawled something.

It was a blood worker that crawled out, getting to its feet. This muscular-bodied midget-thing in coveralls easily picked up the burning-red hypodermic: hands sizzling but still holding. Where the blood workers came from, things were sometimes hotter than this. "Shoop, roodle-eklric!" exclaimed the midget-thing, doing a little hop of joy. Then it walked over to the engine, opened up a small circular cover, opened up the back of the hypodermic, then poured the catalyst's blood in.

The engine's noise increased threefold. Now it was not only noisy, but it shook and thrummed with such intensity that the floor was beginning to show cracks where it was bolted down. A side of the engine slid open and red smoke began to billow forth. The red smoke filled this inner room, began to spread outward… It would soon fill the mansion itself. And the smoke laughed: a familiar laugh made distorted by the qualities of the smoke itself.

…

3.

…

When Selena regained consciousness, she was lying by the bedroom window: the light of day shining down on her. Every breath brought a pain to her chest. Her throat ached from having been squeezed, every breath making for a slight whistling sound. Upwards still, her head was full of pain. It took an effort for her to sit up. Eyes squinting, she managed to tuck her legs under her and sit up, then pulled herself up. She managed to get on top of the wooden stool as so she could see outside. She had to see what was happening now.

A look through the window gave a third-story view of developments on the rear grounds of this estate. There were _animals_ out there, herds of those distorted things galloping, slithering, flying and such in getting around to the front. And there were streaks of brownish mist floating ghost-like, though much of the fog itself was gone. Both the fog and the animals were thinning out: the fog less dense, the _animals_ fewer in number. The mists and such in the air outside the window was now thing enough to cast a direct glow of sunlight. The bright yellow-white sunlight still irritated her milk-pale skin a bit, but it still felt so good. Though the black dress she had on was horrid and depressing, it was not enough to dampen the goodness of the sunlight shining on her.

_Arwhoo! _An _animal _howled off in the distance, probably over in the forest that surrounded the rear grounds. It was probably a war-cry of some kind. War cry or not, she knew that the dog-things, the headless deer-creatures, those purple-furred apes in the electromechanical gas-masks, all the _animals _were losing the battle. She could sense it: sense their fading numbers. Whoever or whatever it was that they were fighting against outside, it must be a truly mighty and ultimately invincible force: a force whose victory must be inevitable as it continually slaughtered the distorted beasts to the last.

_Thump! _"Uh!" she gasped, quickly turning her head to the right so fast that lengths of her hair whipped, and some of it got in her eyes. But she dared not move to flick lengths of hair out of her eyes. She dared not move at all. _Thump! Thump-thump-thump! _Something was pounding on the walls next to the grated air vent. No, that was not an accurate assessment. The pounding was coming from _inside _the walls. And the sunlight that came into this room seemed to darken: as if the light in here was being consumed. _Oh no, please, _went her mind. _Please no, not again, not again… Not…again…!_

The thumping sound…_became a more rhythmic sort. Choonka-chnooka-choonka… Selena had heard that sound before. Oh, yes she did. That steady beat was regular and heavily mechanical in sound. It was the sound made by an engine. Now the sound of the engine was coming through the vent. A glowing red mist wafted out from the vent, going along the floor, along with the sound of mixed laughter._

"_No-o-o!_" shrieked the girl, nearly tumbling off of the perch-like wooden surface. She looked at the window, making it rattle as she tried to use her mind to make it open up. Except the window would only go _rattle-rattle-rattle…_and not go up. Something was keeping the window closed even to the strength of her mind. She broke her concentration enough to try using her hands alone. Small hands, delicate girl-child hands… Of course she could not pull up the window. She then tried pounding the glass and did not care about possibly cutting her hands and wrists. Leaping and falling to her death was preferable to being taken by whatever was in the glowing red mist.

"_Forever the dawdler, you are,_" snarled a voice in the indoor mist as it came closer. It was vaguely like the voice of Miss Gauche, along with dozens of other voices. The voices were speaking in chorus. Yet Miss Gauche's voice dominated. "_We want to use what you have. Surrender yourself, child! You will know bliss!_"

"_I'll not partake of that!_" screamed Selena though her throat ached, voice becoming raw. Now she was sure that she was now inhaling bits of the red mist and taking it into her body. Exhaling, she then clamped both hands over her mouth and nose. If she inhaled any of the contaminated air, with the glowing red mist…

"_You are rude still! Foolish child of the _sidhe,_ you are in need of discipline!_" went the voices in the glowing red mist. A black shadow stood up from the mist, becoming solid: Miss Gauche in her black dress. Except now there was something very wrong with the woman: very wrong, indeed.

The skin left exposed by her long black dress: her feet, hands and face: was now a pasty, bruised gray that was streaked black where the veins stood out. Some of the oily black actually oozed from open sores in her skin. Her red hair was now slick with the blackish-gray stuff, limp and wet against her shoulders. As for her eyes, they were…changed. Now there were just pools of darkness staring out from a grayed face. Selena felt a headache coming on as she stood in proximity to the woman-thing: the manifestation of what was once Miss Gauche as Selena last saw her.

It was this phantasmal manifestation: this _ghost_: that reached down and roughly grabbed Selena's wrists! She glared at the ghost, thought a dark thought and imagined a powerful _strike_. She was glad to see the phantasm's head _snap _to the right. Indeed, the ghost of Miss Gauche had none of the protections she had in life, none of that accursed jewelry. The phantasm's grip on her wrists lessened somewhat.

Except the hands did not totally yield. The grip _tightened_. Then, other hands hands began to touch her. They were soon _pinching _and shoving. Selena's eye's squinted, mouth open in slight gasps of pain and fear. And that was when the glowing red mist had her. The burning stuff went into her mouth and nose, inhaled down her trachea and into her lungs. It filled her, also filling her head with headache and weakness. A thousand voices filled her head…_with laughter and amusement even as the substance filled her body. Aah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…! We've got you now, child of the sidhe! Haw-haw! Oh yes we do! You're ours! Eh-ha-ha… Whoo-o-oo… Selena felt her body weakening. Her eyes rolled up in her head, and she wilted, her wrists still gripped by the phantasm. As her mind was overcome with reddened darkness, she knew that they were going to do something terrible to her. And she would not be the same when they were done._

…

This almost seemed too easy. All that the other girl had to do was open up one of the front doors to this grand house and walk in. She turned to close the door behind herself. Too easy, it was. It was so much so that perhaps she did not even have to dress for adventure and speed: her current outfit of jeans-shorts, tee shirt and oddly clunky boots: a black jacket worn over for protection against possible _animal _attacks. She could easily protect herself against physical threats, but she still should have considered more protective clothing. Too much was going on now. Things were not safe.

There was a great deal of chaos going on outside, so much in the way of noise and violence. The dark bikers: the strangers: were at work in laying waste to anything that so much as dared to try to stop them. They were invincible. But that did not mean the _animals_ couldn't try! And trying they were out there, throwing themselves at the four dark bikers: their weapons cutting, crushing, blasting and flashing hordes of the distorted beasts. The _animals _were having too much fun in going after the dark bikers, so why bother with one skinny young waif of a girl?

Simply being within the mansion itself was no guarantee of easiness and safety, though. The wide-open space of the grand front hall: with its wide floor space: stretched out before her. That staircase went upstairs and to rooms, and there were too many doors at floor-level. There could be any number of rooms: even rooms not originally built with the mansion itself. And within those rooms could be…_things _waiting for her: things from the _Other_ world. Some of those things could even be immune to her.

Her sister was here. She had to be found. As it was, too many of Maire's kin had been lost to oblivion: lost to contamination and suffering. Maire could not live with herself if she did not at least try to save her Sister. So she stood up straight, took in a deep breath, and began taking steps towards the right. There was enough interference within this mansion to give her a slight headache. Yet Maire could still sense Selena's presence _somewhere _within here. It was in _this _direction…

Also in this direction was some of the household help! At least six maid-things dropped down from above, writhing and gasping, their red-veiled heads wagging about. Then they stood up. All of them were armed with various things good for bludgeoning, cutting and killing those who would try to enter this mansion. Those were kitchen knives, steel pipes, long rectangular pieces of wood for clubs, and one of them had a snub-nosed pistol. They were all stagger-walking in this direction.

Maire dealt with that one first. She looked at the maid-thing with the snub-nosed pistol. A _thought_, a sudden blast of sound, and the maid-thing with the gun was suddenly not there anymore: the pistol clattering to the floor as there was now no longer a hand holding it. _That_ sort of trick took a lot of strength out of her, yet the results were thorough and satisfying.

Another thought, and the pistol floated up into her hands: a surprisingly clunky and large weapon. Guns were certainly not designed for people of her stature. Even if she was not sure if she could use it, at least the weapon was no longer in _their _hands.

Then another one of the maid-things began stagger-walking closer. It was one of them with the pieces of lumber. And the way it brandished the wood, it was fully intent on hurting her.

She made that one go up in the air: then hurled the thing at its fellow creatures. The effect was much like hurling a life-sized doll at an arrangement of large bowling pins. Except in this case, the bowling pins so happen to be grotesque things Hell-bent on mutilation and murder. They went sprawling to the floor.

_Cl-clunk-clunk! _Maire turned to see that three more maid-things had dropped out of nowhere: too close. There was just enough time for Maire to give a quick thought, hurling one of them away and towards the far wall. The other two were soon within striking distance. One of them wriggled its head and began to swing a piece of lumber. Maire was also aware of another maid-thing behind her just beginning to swing a piece of wood…

The next thing she knew, she was on her back, limbs sprawled and hair in disarray. Her back… Part of her upper back felt numb and cold in one part: up around her right shoulder. The numbness blocked off all feeling in her right arm as well. The maid-thing that struck her made some sort of gagging exclamation sound of victory before raising the piece of lumber to finish the job.

She gave a quick _thought_, and that maid-thing staggered back. It was enough time for Maire to sit up, find the gun and hold it up: heavy and clunky. But using assistance from her mind allowed her to keep the weapon held: even one-handedly. And she squeezed the trigger. _Crack! _"_Aigh!_" she shrieked as the thing recoiled, nearly breaking her left wrist and making for a tug at her left shoulder. And that made for another one of the maid-things tumbling back and away.

Her left arm hurting, right arm numb from the shoulder-down, now _both _arms hurt. She stood, still with the revolver still in her possession. It was a good thing that she did. The rest of the maid-things were coming for her. So she glared at a cluster of the maid-things and mentally prepared to do something awful to them. She thought of all the hate and trouble they caused, all of the pain and suffering. The air began to heat up…

Lightning struck: jagged florescent forks of blue energy raked out to _blast _the maid-things. At least five of the maid-things were made charred black statues of their former selves. Others were on their backs, no longer moving. Also, the other maid-things were stunned. They simply stood with their heads wriggling.

Indeed, Maire had used another one of her tricks: another one that cost her a great deal of spiritual strength. But what did _not _require a great deal of that strength was usage of the pistol. She raised the weapon, aim shaky… _Squee-squee-squee-squee…!_

The wheelchair struck her from behind, making her go into a flopping sort of fall. She landed on her back again: onto her right shoulder…which had already been severely injured before. The numbness…_was now replaced with intense pain that spread throughout her body and to her head. It made her see dazzling spots of pain and a wave of darkness that covered over her mind in a wash of darkness and cold. She had the idea that the maid-things were coming closer to finish her off. At the least, she had tried to save her sister…_

…

The maid-things surrounded the still, sprawled figure of the pale-haired girl. Their heads wriggled and spasmed about as they stood there. When they were sure that there was no more trouble, some of the maid-things dropped their improvised weapons as they grabbed the girl by the ankles and wrists: not caring how injured her arms were. _Squee, squee, squee…_ It was the sound of that rusty wheelchair again. It was moving more slowly now as it maneuvered itself into position. The maid-things then flopped the girl in the wheelchair: an arm dangling over the right side and head at a far-tilted angle in the same direction, her long moonsilk hair sprawled half-covering her peaceful face. Its passenger in place, the wheelchair began to take the girl away. _Squee, squee, squee, squee, squee…_

…

4.

…

_She was vaguely aware of her physical self: her body. This was an odd feeling to be both of a body and apart from it at the same time. She knew that her body was still in the wheelchair, the wheelchair being in a dark and windy place: surrounded by a broad circle of fire on a platform of metal plates: with grates to cover over the gaps. Darkness above, the circle of fire made for the light here. The fire… It was coming from somewhere, but she could not be sure as things were just so vague and just…so…blurred. Her Sister was here! Yes, her Sister was also in one of those infernal wheelchairs. Though her Sister could not hear, at least she was still alive. They did not destroy her._

Yes, they_ were here: the missionaries from the Other world. From her disconnected position, she saw them as reddish-brown shadows: outlines of looming figures with distorted heads. They were standing on the concrete. The figures had tried to do things to her just as they had done things to her Sister. Now they were awaiting the results of their red handiwork. She could almost hear their minds growling in anticipation for the blessed results._

They sought to utilize her Sister: her Kinfolk: as a catalyst for whatever they wanted to do: as part of their plans. Over her prolonged stay in the town, Selena had been subject to the contamination of their kind. They made her impure to change her to their ways. Worse yet was how they were able to infuse further contamination into Selena's body to the point that the outcome must be terrible. And they were only worsening things.

There was no time to waste. Maire had to act. She concentrated her thoughts and…solidified…her awareness. _She imagined inhaling with her lungs, the beat…of her own heart in her chest, also imagined…the weight of her boots on her legs in shorts… Her jacket was comforting…over…her shirt_. _Now her…_awareness was solid and real again.

Maire was fully within her body: feeling and aware through her senses…and also feeling a numbing headache. Hearing through her ears, she opened her eyes and sat up in the wheelchair. There was something around her neck: squeezing her neck-muscles and pressing her throat. She brought her fingers to the band of metal and felt the runic writing on it: a _torc_. It was likely responsible for her headache. Though she could not feel the writing, she had a very good idea as to what it meant. And it was not good. The writing had a purpose matching the rest of this place of darkness. Indeed, this was a dark place: a cracked and rusted platform-floor of metal plates extended over darkness, some of the plates missing and replaced with rusty grating. The circle of fire that went around came from engines on fire: engines that gave off a low thrumming.

This circle of fiery engines had the width of a merry-go-round ride. And somehow, the engines all around had been arranged with such neatness that the burning metal contraptions did not have any space between them. They were arranged to form a close a circle as possible to facilitate things. The Deniers, the doctor-things, all the beings that served the Machinery of the Other World may be entities of blood, rust, infection and contamination, but they were always especially artful of their operations and actions.

Those of their kind that failed to properly execute that which was done for the Machinery, they were _punished: _remade to better serve the Machinery. Such beings were actually here as well. Maire could see the charred outlines of Deniers on top of the burning engines. But she did not have to look carefully to know that her Sister was also here and becoming aware. She could feel her Sister's mind struggling to regain the energy of consciousness. There were also the distorted-faced doctor-things, four of them. Their backs to the fire, the wind fanned the flames and made their shadows dance. It also managed to make their faces look worse than they already were. Four Missionaries, two victims… Added together, the sum was proper and fitting.

Two human-shaped figures floated out from the windy surrounding darkness. One was dressed in a ragged, torn tuxedo-jacket and pants, a red-smeared shirt beneath the jacket. And the other floating figure was female, dressed in a long black dress. It was indeed _that _person floating down here. Or rather, it was the _ghost _of the person: the phantasmal form of Miss Gauche. She looked just as solid and as real as any human being. Not even the pain and madness of a contaminated death could stop her from trying to bring her plans to fruition.

"_Gyach!_" exclaimed the phantasm of the tall woman, a mouthful of oily black, pudding-like subtsance from her mouth to go _splat _on the plate-metal flooring of the platform. She opened her mouth. "_I sense that…you…are awakened,_" came her words, though her mouth did not move. "_We have two catalysts. Summoning God…will not…be hard!_" She raised her arms, and the wind howled.

The phantasm of Samuel Longhorn, the one in the ruined tuxedo, opened its mouth to expel a gobbet of black. "_The engines burning, the darkness beyond…your universe…is spread open,_" he said. "_It is a welcoming…gesture… Catalysts in place…and renewed engines…burning hot, God's descent is facilitated. They have seen to it. Are they not generous?_"

Maire glanced left at Selena, who was sitting up in her wheelchair as well. Her Sister was fingering the _torc _around her own neck. "Nay, 'tis not _generosity _which compels the Otherworld," began Maire. "Thou must have verily seen truth beyond the veils of fictions at some point!" The girl was becoming so emotional now that her accent became more pronounced. "Thy spirit hast fallen subject to thy corruption! 'Tis corruption. 'Tis thine ideal of _contamination. Do ye not see thine downfall in thy actions?_"

"_I see-e-e…an imperiously spoiled child of the sidhe,_" said the open-mouthed phantasm of Miss Gauche, staring in Maire's direction with night-darkened eye-sockets. She floated some steps closer to Maire. "_They have warned…that you-u-u resisted…the blessing. Unlike…your Kin, you…have not taken to the Red. Why not…join your Sister-r-r…in…blessing?_"

Maire glared at the phantasms, floating with feet just above the plate-metal floor: everything above covered in sheer windy darkness. She also glanced at her sister in the other wheelchair, slumped over and looking defeated. The source of their power was all around. Though Miss Gauche and her erstwhile partner: Mr. Longhorn: had been killed, not even death could stop them. It actually made them _stronger_. And all around was the broad burning circle of their accursed engines. Her sister could not help. Both of her strongest enemies were here… The situation seemed almost hopeless. Would it not be better to simply…give in to the warm darkness?

Of course not! "_I'll not give in, ye horrid brethren of all things sinister!_" screamed Maire. Ignoring the pains in her arms, she reached for the platinum _torc _around her neck. She used a twist of her mind to assist her hands and was able to _break _the circle of metal. Both of the phantasms then _howw-wled_ in frustration and anger. The defiant pale-haired then stood up out of the rusty wheelchair she was in, girl looked at the broken thing in her hand. She made the _torc_ levitate, then sent it hurling into the surrounding darkness beyond the circle of burning engines.

"_…Oogh!_" howled the phantasm of the tall woman. She quickly floated over to near the circumfrence of burning engines: floating as close as she dared as if she was still alive. Then both the phantasm of the tall woman and the once-rich man quickly floated back over to Maire. Both figures had their oily hands outspread and were fully intent on doing something terrible to her. She was unsure what, but it was no doubt something terrible. The fingers of hands could reach _into _her body to do more than physically kill her. No, the phantasms could also directly contaminate her with the very same stuff of darkness that pervaded them. There were things worse than death, especially in this place.

The pale-haired girl made a run for it, though her legs still felt weak: legs flashing and leather jacket fluttering as she ran along. The phantasms were close to her. Yet she was fast, as fast as the wind. And when she came to the very edge of the circle of fire, she was sure to keep running. She was very sure to run in circles, going around right to left and back again: running in the direction known as _clockwise. _The phantasms still followed, reaching with their hands and trying to catch her: giving her a severe headache as their spiritual malignancy radiated outward towards her.

Maire could feel their closeness just as she felt the flames of the burning engines at her left. Those accursed things would likely try to pursue her for an eternity if she failed here. Since she was still physically alive, she did not have an eternity to evade them as her body would soon tire. Yet the deed had to be done. This circling had to be completed. 

She made one fast and very energetic run all along the edge of the engines. This done, she staggered a few more steps and collapsed: her legs beneath her as she used her arms to support herself. It was not that the run itself should have exhausted her. It was all of this place. The air itself, something was wrong with the air. It was heavy and felt wrong in her lungs and had that reek of _contamination. _ There was the heat, the _radiation_ from the burning engines. And worse still were the two phantasm and all of their _hate_. Gasping for air, her head aching, Maire looked up at the two figures…when there was that _r-r-r-rumbling_ sound.

The phantasms stopped their hovering approach and looked off in a direction somewhere to Maire's right: beyond this circle of burning engines… There was a _sunrise golden-colored glow _from above: a florescent-brightness that glowed to white and…_burned the darkness and: for a time: made everything here seem brighter than daylight. The light made Maire squint her eyes, but it felt…wonderful. The feeling burned away all of her physical pain and hurt, all of her hopelessness. She stood up off of the rusty plate-metal floor. On her feet again, she tilted back her face and outspread her arms: letting the feeling fill her. It was…bliss._

The light…soon faded, but it was all that Maire needed. She looked on the phantasms and saw that they were weakened and somehow: bound to the plate-metal floor. She stepped closer without fear to see that both phantasms were miraculously pierced through with glowing metal blades that had miraculously come down from above during the glow, blades with triangular wooden handles. The glowing blades continued to glow with the brightness of that light. Both phantasms writhed and made sucking, gasping sounds: not able to move.

_R-r-r-rumble… _Maire staggered and stood awkwardly as the heavy vibrations shook the floor of plate metal and rusty grating: making everything unstable. Could it be…? She did not think that the dark bikers: the riders: could not come here. But she heard them, _felt _them. Turning, the girl also saw the beginning of them getting to work though she could not see them beyond the wall of flame.

_R-r-r-rumble… Clank-k-k-k! _Three of the huge engine-machines exploded into chunks of red-hot shrapnel. The rumbling of the unseen bikers continued its way around. _Clank! _Another engine was destroyed: its flame extinguished as its parts were scattered. This lead to a weakening of the other engines, their flames going lower. Those engines were being undone and destroyed.

Something else was also happening. Maire turned back to look at the two phantasm impaled on the plate-metal floor. In fact, two sections of the floor came up and slid aside. Out from the floor climbed a group of blood workers: those broad-bodied dark midgets in coveralls. They made grunting sounds as they worked together to lift the plates on which the two phantasms were impaled with glowing blades. This way, they were able to lift up the phantasms as if they were meals on trays.

One of them hobbled over to the square hole in the floor to move aside some more plates. This opened up an even wider hole: an opening darker than the depths of the universe. It was also big enough for the blood workers to throw in the phantasms of Miss Gauche and Mr. Longhorn: who _scree-e-eamed _as they vanished into that abyss. "_Elkric, roodle-ee nw-w-w-wod!_" declared one of the other-worldly midget-thing before also hopping down into the abyss. The rest of the blood workers followed: hopping down into the darkness down there.

Then they were gone. Maire carefully walked over to the edge of the widened square hole, getting as close as she dared lest she fall in. The last of their screams faded off now as those two enemies were swallowed by the void: down there in the world where the _Others _came from. And all around, the circle of engines was now wrecked: the sound of the dark bikers _r-r-rumbling _off into the distance. Chunks of the engines still smoldered with remaining, sputtering flames. Yet even those were going out.

It was over… "_Aye_," said the girl gently, "_No more will those two be harbingers of trouble to their own world._" That was also true for any world. Now all that Maire had to do was take her Sister _out _of here. Between the two of them, they could summon the way out. So she happily walked over to where her twin was slumped in the other wheelchair. Maire would have thought that the brief-lived glow from above would have also helped Selena. But maire should have noticed something…

She did not, only bearing in mind the desire to help her Sister up out of the wheelchair during this moment of victory over the invaders. Selena's head jerked up: eyes looking at Maire. And the eyes were not the green color they should have been.. They had…changed.

"_Sister! What darkness is this_?" asked Maire, staggering back. _Crack! _Red lighting…_flashed from above and struck. Maire felt a numbness seize her body and fell backwards: having a glimpse of the dark-red band of metal still around her Sister's neck before the impact._

_Selena was contaminated, of course. All of that time in Pleasant River, out after dark had done damage enough to her purity. Then there was all of that time with Miss Gauche. Further worse was how much was done to her in this place. There was no telling how much time, how many opportunities, that _They _had to change Selena after changing her body._

Whimpering in pain and suffering, she had been nearly paralyzed by that strike of red lightning, Maire struggled. Her struggles only amounted to a weak writhing. She was vaguely aware of her own Sister: her contaminated _kin: coming closer. Selena felt a weight on her abdomen as her Sister straddled her. Hands encircled Maire's neck and began to squeeze. It was so easy as Maire was so slim a girl, her neck slender and delicate as she lie paralyzed and weakened: not able to resist…_

…

__

"Hail Bridgett, hail the light

….Greetings to dreams of sound

Come to me, bring aid to me

….For they are all around.

"A fallen land, this darkened place

…Across a burning sea

Another land, another world

…May lightning carry me."

…

_There was a roaring sound of wind. It was the sound of the air itself being torn asunder. Melted wheels of a vehicle were rapidly spinning as the huge, flaming vehicle ambled along the plate-metal surface: as if it was any old roadway. It was the burning bus which slow-w-ed to a stop on its ever-melting tires. And it did stop. At the front-right of the vehicle, the door slowly sque-e-ealed open on flame-heated hinges…_

…

5.

…

The concrete floor of the house basement was usually dark and shadowy due to there just being three light fixtures throughout the place. Now the place was very well-lit with portable florescent lights: the kind of lights that photographers used to better illuminate subjects such as fashion models: smiling or frowning. Except in this case, though the subject of photography was beautiful, she was not smiling. That was because she was dead. Her pale blonde hair partially curtained her pert face, a face in the calm repose of what is believed to be the final rest: a blue chalk outline around her body. _Fwick,_ went the flash of a camera. _Fwick-fwick!_

She lie dead-still, looking so small and forlorn. Slim and small, she was not close to five feet in height and slender: porcelain-toned skin and white-blonde hair curtaining her face. She had on calf-length boots on her feet and jeans-shorts, with a tee shirt for a top: an open black-leather jacket thrown over for warmth. The jacket seemed large and floppy on her slender body, the calf-length boots clunky and perhaps for a girl older than her. It made the police want to put a blanket over the body. Except there was no point to doing that: The dead need not be comforted against the cold. They had the peace of eternity to bring them all the comfort they needed.

All around, the police were especially lively. Both uniformed police officers and plain-clothes personnel were dusting for fingerprints throughout the basement: checking the basement entryway, using close scrutiny for footprints other than those who lived here, and taking plenty of photographs. _Fwick! _They wanted to be _absolutely sure _that they found any and all sorts of possible evidence regarding the dead girl: who seemed to be a murder victim.

…_Subject has been identified as_ _Maire Ni Sidhe. The subject is of Nordic-Irish descent, official age being 16 years: though her adoption records are not fully reliable. (See attached.) Subject is of slim build and small stature: four feet in height, though with no unusual proportions indicative of dwarfism, stunted growth or otherwise. Such also leads to physical estimates of the subject's true age varying between nine years and nineteen years of age. The body has not been moved, yet there are no immediate signs of violence as the cause of death. An autopsy report is pending._

Indeed, the police department of Pleasant River wanted to get right on this case. For a young girl to die alone after foul play, that was an injustice in their eyes. They would certainly find the killer: if there was one. Or it could have been suicide. They had not moved the body yet.

"Hey Karl, I'm gonna go ask the captain if we can bring down the homeowners now," commented Police Sergeant Smith, finishing up some notes on his notepad. He was talking to another one of the team that was handling the fingerprints-dusting. "I think it's time." A nod from him, and he pocketed his notepad, then went over to the police captain heading up this case. The captain agreed.

A woeful glance at the fallen girl, and carefully went up the basement stairs. He was up there for a minute while the forensics work continued down here. _Fwick, _went the cameras of the photographers. There was still the silent swishing of the tiny soft brushes used to dab fingerprint-revealing powders on metallic and other surfaces. Notepads still scribbled detailed notes about the scene. Then Sergeant Smith came back down the stairs with the elderly couple following: both the husband and wife rail-thin and frail themselves, both still dressed in pajamas and thick woolen robes.

They stood at the foot of the stairs, looking over at the body of the girl next to the furnace in the center of this basement. The elderly man's blue eyes were stern, but his clenched jaw quivered ever-so-slightly. His gray-haired wife simply stared with eyes wide open as if she could still not believe the sight. The elderly woman turned her stare to look at the police captain, her husband also looking. They waited until he stopped.

"I'm sorry to have asked for you two to have returned down here, sorry for the inconvenience," said the police detective: a tall man in beige slacks and buttoned white shirt, long trench coat worn over. His black shoes were of soft, dark leather. "It is simply that the evidence we have so far is contradictory. According to both your statements and the physical evidence we have collected, there is no sign of forced entry or even entry from outside." He looked at the husband. "You, Mr. Montaigne, claimed to have heard the furnace malfunctioning… _Animal _sounds coming from the vents, you say? And upon your coming down the stairs, you claim to have discovered the body of the girl. Then you went to seek out your wife to confirm what you were seeing: before she, in turn, used an upstairs telephone to call us. And you found her just as she is, where she is, now."

"That's right, detective," answered Arnold Montaigne. "I had my wife check her out, too. Sometimes, a man's mind can play tricks on him. For all I knew, she could've been a life-sized doll that somebody just so happened to throw down here. She _does _look like a really big kid's toy, so frail and pretty. But my wife knows more about that sort of thing than I do since she used to work in industrial design. She found out that it was a real girl over there. A real girl lying there dead and all alone."

"A real tragedy," said Mrs. Yvonne Montaigne. "A girl that age should have been in school, with a home, with parents who love her. This is a small town, and we all know each other: or at least know each others' faces. Yeah, it's also because… Well, we all have the same common house of worship." She saw the police detective nod. He knew what kind of worship she was talking about. "There was no girl like that in this town: especially someone who looks like that." She shook her head. "So pretty… Was it drugs? She's so small and thin…"

"At this time, we cannot lock down any specific cause for the subject's death," stated the detective. "Yet we are beginning to suspect that she entered the basement through an alternate means. There is that one barred window which she could have squeezed through, but the window itself remains closed. And the door has no fingerprints."

There was a _r-r-rumbling _from the house's furnace, followed by other sounds of activity"What the Hell…?" exclaimed a police officer over by the murder scene. The detective saw the elderly couple look past him. He then turned to see what the commotion was all about. If anything, it was certainly worth making a commotion about. At least that was true if he could believe what the Hell he was seeing.

Because before the other police could crowd around the scene, he saw the girl…_standing up. _She used her arms to ease herself up to a sitting position. Then she stood and began to brush herself off as police officers began to take notice and mob over her. If the girl was alive, they wanted to be sure that she was safe. "Excuse me," said the detective before turning away from the elderly couple to see the girl.

"Make way, make way…" said the detective. The other police officers and such hesitated…before letting him through. Some gave rude looks to him despite him being their superior in rank with the department. "Make way, _please_," he insisted. Thought to himself, _Geez, the way they're crowding the girl, they'd think she was the second Coming of the Savior! _That, or one would think that some new pop-star had come onto the scene and everyone else had reverted to being infatuated fans. It must have taken a good minute to get through to the girl.

In all his years of police work, covering forensics, he had seen a lot of otherwise amazing things: most of it unpleasant. Corpses would twitch for some time after fresh death. Much later, they would sometimes even burp. And after death, there was the fallacy that fingernails continued to grow; it was actually an illusion created by the retraction of the cuticles due to dehydration of the epidermis. There were a lot of things taught at academies and schools about dead bodies that people had to be told to prevent surprises. Still, the surprises were there: twitching, burping, "growing" fingernails, and all. This police captain had seen plenty. But never, _not ever_, did he hear about a girl dead for six hours, get up and dust herself off.

__

Here she was, standing up in a circle of space at the center of this indoor crowd: in her playful outfit and floppy leather jacket, her lengths of long moonsilk-colored hair curtaining the sides of her face. And with one of the bright portable photographers' klieg lights still shining on her, she seemed radiant, a girl of a miracle. It was as she was _blessed _to look uponIt was no wonder people were staring and crowding around her.

He shook his head, blinked before approaching her, carefully approaching. Who knows, the beautiful girl could drop dead again. He knelt on one knee as so his face was level with hers: a knee of his pressed slacks to the gritty basement floor. "Excuse me… Young miss? I'm Detective Sole. Are you okay?" One of the first things a person had to do in terms of first aid was check for alertness. If she was not alert, then they would be sure to rush her to the hospital.

The girl nodded. She raised her small fingers to a side of her head: to tuck some lengths of hair behind an ear. This gave a clear view of the right side of her pretty face and earlobe. She then put her left hand on the detective's right shoulder and leaned forward as if to kiss the detective on a cheek. Instead, she whispered something into his right ear. It made his eyes go wide, still wide as she righted herself and nodded. Whatever she had said, he believed it: or was frightfully surprised by it.

…

An hour later, the girl had been transported over to the Pleasant River Police Department: over in the municipal complex-area. There was a procession of various police vehicles behind the unmarked detective's car as they went: as if she was royalty. Part of the reason was that the police-band car radios were malfunctioning for whatever reason. But primarily, they wanted to be close to her…just to make sure that she was alright. No one seemed to mind that a cowboy song seemed to be interfering with the police-band frequencies.

In the station itself, she was apparently doing very well and very alert as she sat in front of the police detective's open-cubicle desk. The band-shaped bruise around her neck seemed to have faded, and her mood was markedly bright. She sat with her left leg crossed over right and hands on the edges of the wooden seat. Her hair still curtained a side of her face: making others want to gently reach over and see her face. So petite and pretty, quaint and polite with her slight accent, there were plenty of others in this station who would have adopted her here and now if only to have her for their very own. Her outfit of shorts and tight tee shirt, with black jacket seemed a bit too "mature" for her, but it also seemed to make her seem all the more precious: as if she was a child playing dress-up with her older sister's clothes. Then again, looking at her, there was no way of really telling her age. She had the stature of a young girl, but she also had the lithe, lean proportions of a slender young woman. A petite young woman or young girl, it was difficult to tell. Whatever, she was very pretty.

At least six other police personnel were hanging around the desk and listening to her as she politely answered questions regarding her whereabouts prior to the incident. They all believed her every word. They not only listened to what she said, they listened to the sound of her sweetly gentle, slightly accented voice. Some of the things she had said _should _have been understood to be unbelievable. And perhaps they would have seemed incredible. The girl had said something about having come out of Silent Hill: prior to what happened to it. She also expressed worry about her adopted parents. Oh, and her name was not Maire.

"Excuse me, detective. I would like to utilize the washroom," she said at some point. How polite! Even the way she asked to use something as common as a bathroom was quaint and splendid. Splendid, elegant, they were all words to go with the girl. Even then, they could not imagine such a beautiful thing being at all soiled.

__

Of course she could use the washroom! In fact, there were three female police personnel wishing to escort her to the nearest. She uncrossed her legs and stood up. She even gave a slight curtsey before turning to face the oh-so-willing policewomen to show her the way. They were honored to show her the way. It was at the far end of this room. Normally, it was for police use only. But since she was so important, no one would mind.

…

One of the policewomen held open the bathroom door. "If you need us for anything, ma'am, we'll all be _right here_," she said. "Just shout or say anything!" The policewoman even smiled at the girl. She seemed almost hesitant to close the door. But she did close the door to give the girl her privacy. It left her in here alone.

There were three stalls in this women's bathroom, floor tiling a mottled beige-white coloration, three porcelain-clean sinks at the right with toilet-stalls to the left. Mirrors were above each. Her calf-length boots made slight clunking sounds as she stepped towards one of the sinks: the sink farthest on the left. Turning to face the faucet, she put both hands on the sink and slowly elevated herself up on tip-toes. She was now able to just barely see her own eyes in the mirror, a mirror designed for those adult in height.

Her own face and eyes looked back at her: a view of the bathroom stalls behind her. Her eyes, they were not the dazzling emerald-green orbs seen by others. Because her eyes were ruby-red in the reflection. And as she stared into her own reflection, the mirror began…_to fog up. It was as if the inside surface of the glass was taking on a tinge of blood. In the reflection, all three of the bathroom stalls slow-w-wly opened. The lights flickered, and there was a scream elsewhere in the police station_. _There were twisted, grotesque sounds coming from the air vent: sounds that mixed animal grunts with the churning of strange machines…_

…

_A view through the sewer-grates and outward was one of the sealed café across the downtown street: this street seemingly abandoned to all vehicular traffic. It was sunset now, the crimson-orange low light of the dying sunlight casting everything in a low and warm glow. All the cars were parked at the curbs, their windows now thoroughly grimed over with that grotesque reddish mixture of grit, dried blood and grease. The car bodies themselves were becoming pitted with rust as the rust-proofing and paint-jobs were being eaten away by airborne contaminants. And it was the very same thing that It was the contamination, and it conquered all on this street as the winds of the fading day how-w-wled along the street. The wind howled along the street: and shook the door of that sealed café: as if the wind carried the spirits of the miserable and the dead, struggling to get out of the street and get in. But that wind could not get in…_

_Inside…_the sealed café itself, the outside was just a vague and reddish-smeared image through the grimed-over picture windows: the last of the sunset glowing its way in to make for some illumination. It was not as if the broken mannequins especially cared about the quality of the lighting. The well mannequins: parts and remains of them: were all over. All the dining booths and square set near the big windows had slumped broken figures that lacked arms or even heads: the wooden heads having rolled onto the floor. Torsoes still dressed in human clothes had sleeves and pant-legs empty of limbs as well: because the disconnected jointed limbs were scattered along the floor, near the tables. They had fallen off as the mannequins had fallen apart. At the round tables throughout the center of the room, the well-dressed mannequins seemed somewhat more fortunate: most of them having remained somewhat intact. Even so, their forlorn figures were slumped across the tabletops.

They were all haphazard and in random conditions, these broken things. But common to all of them was how their carved heads all faced one part of the café itself. That is to say, all of the heads: on jointed necks, on floors or atop tables, were facing the little raised stage for performances. The little stage seemed barely there itself as it was near the part of the café somewhat far from the windows: leaving it in shadows and sunset-colored gloom. It was as if the mannequins' heads were watching and waiting for something to happen. Something on that stage, anything happening, would be a welcome change.

_Squee-e-e, wheedle… Hum-he-e-e-e…! _Some truly horrible squealing sounds came from the speakers mounted in the ceiling, tortured sounds from the sound system. The wiring was still good. Everything outside this place may be contaminated and crumbling, rusting and grimed, but things in here were still in somewhat decent working order. As the squealing and shrieking sounds of tortured electrical machinery faded off into hissing, there were even some traces of a strumming guitar: along with the sound of a girl gasping…

Or it was not coming from the speakers. As the speakers quieted down, the blue velvet curtains of the little stage swished aside. A pale-haired girl emerged: gasping and wheezing through her injured throat, the circular bruise a blood-red color around her pale neck: most of the bruise hidden by her haggard hair. Her leather jacket was ripped, and her once-playful outfit of shorts and tee shirt was smeared with reddish grit in places: with a scratached left arm over her abdomen. Indeed, the real Maire had made it back from that _Other _place, and she was in pain.

She could be _killed_,brought to death through physical pain and suffering. Killed, yet she could never _die_. That was because Maire knew that death was a lie. She would always try to come back. Now that her Sister was gone, someone had to come back. Maire was that someone, had to be that person, especially now. She glanced back at the blue-velvet curtains, making it go closed again.

Her boots made clunking, cumbersome sounds as she staggered towards the edge of the stage… And she fell off, nearly hitting her face. Stunned for a moment, her breathing stopped for an uncomfortable amount of time. Then the rhythm of her lungs resumed as she inhaled and exhaled: letting herself just lie still for a moment to let the pain dissipate at least somewhat. There was too much pain for her to handle at the moment, a little girl with a lot of pain. The pain… It would have just been so much better to lie here and do nothing. It was all over, anyway. Why bother?

Even so, she used her left arm to push herself up to a sitting position: her right arm still paining her to the point that it hurt to even let it move. So she let the limb hand limp. She shuddered as sharp splinters of pain troubled her right shoulder, the entire right side of her body and filling her head. Sitting up eventually allowed her to stagger to her feet, eventually standing. She let her head slump as she resumed her painful pace towards the dining counter to her left. Through the lack of artificial lighting and the haze of pain in her head, it was a miracle that she could make her way along.

Eventually, Maire had made it to behind the counter where there was the console to operate the systems. The tall waitress was no longer in any condition to help operate things… It took some one-handed struggling for her to do so, clicking heavy knobs but she was soon glad to see a low green-colored glow and lights on the panels light up. She turned one knob to the left, then pulled _up _on a heavy toggle switch.

There was a _thump_, a spotlight came on: illuminting the head waiter standing on the stage in front of a silvery microphone. That bald-headed man in black pants and white shirt: with black bowtie: had cheeks that were wet with tears. But with fists clenched and jaw shut, he did not weep aloud. There were _no _sounds from him…until Maire managed to turn up another knob on the console.

A low, sad electric guitar began to make slow twangs through the speakers, backed by thumps and thrums of a bass string instrument. That electric guitar resonated with echoes while the bass made for rock-solid thumps of beat. That strumming bass made for almost the sound of a drum. It made for the back-sound of instrumentation. On stage, the head waiter stopped looking at the floor. He looked outward, backed by the sound of the instruments playing through the speakers. And he began to sing a chant…

Paint your picture…to my front door

Take your smile…for…a r-i-i-ide

I awake…through a bad dream rising

Your kiss, it frames…the sky-y-y

Your footsteps echo in the hallway

Your picture…hangs above…the faucet dripping

…In the kitchen

…It's just the rhythm…

…Of the blue-e-e…

We used to talk…about these days

We used to say…they'd never happen

But now that they've happened

…It makes no difference who I a-a-am!

The instruments went on for the space of a few seconds as the head waiter clenched his jaw shut. The instruments playing through the speakers made for their own music for a time. Then, somehow, there was the sound of a duet to chant out a pair of lyrics.

__

She doesn't live here…anymore

She doesn't live here…anymo-o-o-ore

That said, the head waiter looked up from the floor. Bitter tears in his eyes, he still stood there. And he resumed the song. Painful though it was, he would continue the song. It was for the sake of those broken figures of the audience. It was for the sake of everyone involved.

__

I close my eyes and waste a wish

You know I gave you…my ve-ry best

But it wasn't good enough

…You took forever…and all it could ever be!

She doesn't live here…anymore

She doesn't live here…anymo-o-o-ore

We used to talk…about these days

We used to say…they'd ne-e-ever happen!

But now that they've happened

…It makes no difference who I a-a-am!

She doesn't live here…anymore

She doesn't live here…anymore

She doesn't live here…anymore

She doesn't live here…anymo-o-ore!

That was all the head waiter could sing. He looked to the floor, his head lowered in spiritual pain that seemed matched by Maire's physical suffering. From there, the instruments went on. The instruments played on for a little while longer, then they lapsed into silence. The wind outside the picture-window howled on as_ the sunset out there seemed just slightly darker. The sunset closer, the darkness was coming. Who would bring light and hope this time?_

…

_A town away, and perhaps a world away, the darkness had already established a territory in this world. This place, something else was askew. Something was descending. The streaking reddish mists and wafting fogs drifted along above and through the metal grating that formed a platform. There had to be something set up now because the ground beneath was almost all consumed by now: a platform over a seemingly infinite abyss, supported by interlaced metal scaffolding extending down into that abyss. Some incandescent lamps extended up from the platform to provide for some lighting and made for glowing globes of light._

This was far from being simply a flat expanse of grated metal and alloy plating. No, there were structures built atop this: structures beyond the front entranceway. Such structures were perhaps the size of houses. Some were smaller, and many of them had odd shapes in the gloom. Pieces and parts of these structures stretched up beyond the glow of the streetlamps with shadowy shapes and forms. One such structure was round in shape, round and surrounded all around with gating that went child-high. Beyond the circular gate was a large, raised circular platform: atop which were various parts and chunks of engines.

Whir-r-r…! Then came some sounds of electromechanical engines revving up beneath the circular platform, followed by a rhythmic clank-clanking of pistons. Clank-clank, went the piston-works as the circular platform began to go round and round. Some of the chunks of engines atop the circular platform had horse-shaped heads. The heads rattled as the power of the engines built up, the platform going in circles. That was important, that the engines moved and whirred.

Clank-clank it circled. By now, there was soon the whimsical, piping tune of calliope music that still came from somewhere within the electromechanical workings of the engines. Even after the structure had been altered to serve the purposes of the Others, it still made that sound. And the horse-heads atop the engines began to vibrate, resonating with sound. It was resonating with the power to summon something awesome.

Once upon a time, this structure was called something else by the original inhabitants of this world. It was called a "merry-go-round,": with seat-bearing parts atop a circular platform that went round-and-round for the enjoyment of the riders. The structure even bore most of its original shape from before. Except now, with the local inhabitants of this world blessed and removed, the merry-go-round had been changed to suit the purposes of the Machine. Blood pulsed through pipes and electricity jolted its way through cables. If not a catalyst, then another means would be used to make way for "God" into the rest of this world: for the reach of this "God" to go beyond the town of Silent Hill... 


End file.
